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Why Wagstaff Should NOT be Added


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Yikes...

So, it seems many people want Wagstaff to be added. Sorry, but that's a terrible idea, and Klei made the right call adding Wormwood and Warly instead of him. Well, almost the right call...

Spoiler

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Anyway, I guess we'll start with the most obvious problem- the revolutionary Thumper. You can plant 39 Pinecones around it, essentially meaning you can grow up to 39 Evergreens - and destroy them all plus their stumps in 6 seconds.

Spoiler

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(It's singleplayer so I just planted the pine cones in one spot... point still stands.)

That's faster than Maxwell and Woodie combined. Hey, you guys want that Woodie rework so bad, right? Imagine if he did get refreshed, but then he's still ultimately a bad wood gatherer thanks to the Thumper being available by everyone via Celestial Portal. 

Not only would the Thumper simply existing indirectly nerf Maxwell and Woodie, that in itself would discourage people from choosing Maxwell or Woodie. Is that what DST needs? More dead characters?

Simple fix: just nerf the Thumper's range?
Simple refute: you can make multiple Thumpers, and if it's a really strong nerf then the Thumper is just inferior now; vice versa. Better Woodie = discouraged Wagstaff.

It goes past resources as well; the Thumper is the best griefing tool. Just drop it in the middle of a base and bam, it's all gone. Griefing exists... it happens all the time. Rollbacks don't do any good, especially since there is a set saving point. As long as progress is wasted, the griefer's job is done. Flingo-matics suppress fire and hammers are slow enough to get kicked before extreme damage, but what the hell are you going to do when Albert Einstein shows up and instantly destroys the entire base? Do we want to give griefers this opportunity?

The Thumper is a manure sandwich no matter how you chew it, so it's best if the concept were left back in Don't Starve. 

And then we have a slightly less revolutionary thing... Telequipment. This gear was already arguably overpowered in Singleplayer, now get ready for:

Teleporting to the Lunar Island (guess there's no reason for boats to exist anymore)
Teleporting to the Atrium (because screw the little journey over there)
Teleporting through Oasis' sandstorm  (even less reason not to kill antlion now)

Turn Of Tides? More like Turn Off the seafaring tab and just add Wagstaff. Great way to introduce new content.

I guess those are the revolutionary items. The goggles aren't a problem of course, other than the fact that they make everyone else nearsighted so Wagstaff is just a character who partially only benefits himself in a game focused on survival together, but meh. A more concerning thing would be the Fuelweaver exploit...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LKSVxuDi_0c&feature=youtu.be&t=114

Just imagine that with 100 DPS Fryfocals... sheesh

I can almost already hear counter-arguments. "Remove the revolutionary gear!" But, why? Why even call him Wagstaff anymore? Not even the same character at all. At that point, just slap the goggles, myopia and delicate stomach on Winona's dad and bam, same character. And I guess the better argument is "You don't have to play Wagstaff". I don't, but the DST community is not a hivemind. People would choose Wagstaff no matter what I do. Think of it like having a hacker on your team in an FPS game.

Overall, I think I've said enough. If Wagstaff were added, he'd kill Woodie and most of Maxwell. If Wagstaff were added, boats and big tentacles would have no reason to exist past the first time you use them. If Wagstaff were added, then griefing would be easier and deadlier than ever before. If Wagstaff were added... then who'd like to buy all my skins? Not like I'd want them anymore.

That is all. 

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24 minutes ago, Plushical said:

.5ce03c1c497d8_Screenshot2019-05-17at9_51_25PM.thumb.png.a864d094bb084f72c0ba396b5e3a4d66.png

Yikes...

So, it seems many people want Wagstaff to be added. Sorry, but that's a terrible idea, and Klei made the right call adding Wormwood and Warly instead of him. Well, almost the right call...

  Reveal hidden contents

woodvswheel.thumb.jpg.e0a1fa38e641d54ef260df685b065f03.jpg

 

I'll fix that later...

 

24 minutes ago, Plushical said:

That's faster than Maxwell and Woodie combined. Hey, you guys want that Woodie rework so bad, right? Imagine if he did get refreshed, but then he's still ultimately a bad wood gatherer thanks to the Thumper being available by everyone via Celestial Portal. 

Not only would the Thumper simply existing indirectly nerf Maxwell and Woodie, that in itself would discourage people from choosing Maxwell or Woodie. Is that what DST needs? More dead characters?

1

Woodie's already dead, and wood gathering is a weak niche. Maxwell would be fine as he still has the best rock mining and sanity management. It's a role that seperates him from Woodie and Wagstaff.

24 minutes ago, Plushical said:

Simple fix: just nerf the Thumper's range?
Simple refute: you can make multiple Thumpers, and if it's a really strong nerf then the Thumper is just inferior now; vice versa. Better Woodie = discouraged Wagstaff.

It goes past resources as well; the Thumper is the best griefing tool. Just drop it in the middle of a base and bam, it's all gone. Griefing exists... it happens all the time. Rollbacks don't do any good, especially since there is a set saving point. As long as progress is wasted, the griefer's job is done. Flingo-matics suppress fire and hammers are slow enough to get kicked before extreme damage, but what the hell are you going to do when Albert Einstein shows up and instantly destroys the entire base? Do we want to give griefers this opportunity?

2

The game shouldn't be balanced around griefing, just look at what happened to Willow and Woodie when they tried doing that. not to mention that if we're talking pubs, and the base you want to grief has flingos, *than good luck getting the gears for the thumper in the first place*

24 minutes ago, Plushical said:

The Thumper is a manure sandwich no matter how you chew it, so it's best if the concept were left back in Don't Starve. 

And then we have a slightly less revolutionary thing... Telequipment. This gear was already arguably overpowered in Singleplayer, now get ready for:

Teleporting to the Lunar Island (guess there's no reason for boats to exist anymore)
Teleporting to the Atrium (because screw the little journey over there)
Teleporting through Oasis' sandstorm  (even less reason not to kill antlion now)

Turn Of Tides? More like Turn Off the seafaring tab and just add Wagstaff. Great way to introduce new content.

1

Well for starters, There is most definitly going to be more than just the lunar island. There's already bull kelp that can't be teleported to, so I fully expect more stuff to collect, and likely more islands. As for the atrium, It's not even that hard of a trip, considering that you only have to kill a tentepillar.

24 minutes ago, Plushical said:

I guess those are the revolutionary items. The goggles aren't a problem of course, other than the fact that they make everyone else nearsighted so Wagstaff is just a character who partially only benefits himself in a game focused on survival together, but meh. A more concerning thing would be the Fuelweaver exploit...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LKSVxuDi_0c&feature=youtu.be&t=114

Just imagine that with 100 DPS Fryfocals... sheesh

 

The fryfocals cost 1 red gem, 1 pig skin, and 1 gold each, and have 10 durability at 50 damage/shot. The ancient fuelweaver has 16,000 HP. Dividing that by 500 damage per fryfocal, that equates to 32 red gems per fuelweaver kill. Now I'm no expert, but even with Varg farms, I'd say That's a pretty good investment for fuelweaver cheese (and that's ignoring the fact that cheese in general should be fixed).

24 minutes ago, Plushical said:

I can almost already hear counter-arguments. "Remove the revolutionary gear!" But, why? Why even call him Wagstaff anymore? Not even the same character at all. At that point, just slap the goggles, myopia and delicate stomach on Winona's dad and bam, same character. And I guess the better argument is "You don't have to play Wagstaff". I don't, but the DST community is not a hivemind. People would choose Wagstaff no matter what I do. Think of it like having a hacker on your team in an FPS game.

 

A better analogy would be having someone who uses the blantently OP weapon while everyone else balances themselved. But even then by this logic we should also Remove Wickerbottom, Wolfgang, and WX-78, Sense they're considered the "Meta characters"

24 minutes ago, Plushical said:

Overall, I think I've said enough. If Wagstaff were added, he'd kill Woodie and most of Maxwell.

 

Maxwell still has a niche, and Woodie's already 6 feet under, so it's not like the thumper would do much to him.

24 minutes ago, Plushical said:

If Wagstaff were added, boats and big tentacles would have no reason to exist past the first time you use them.

 

Bit tentacles still function as wormholes to the rest of the cave, and Wagstaff can only set 1 up. And there will most definitly be more ocean content than *just* the lunar island. Heck, this was supposedly the *light* update.

24 minutes ago, Plushical said:

If Wagstaff were added, then griefing would be easier and deadlier than ever before.

 

Right now, the standard for griefing is 2 grass and 2 sticks. If you can't grief for cheaper than that, then it's probably not worth it.

24 minutes ago, Plushical said:

If Wagstaff were added... then who'd like to buy all my skins? Not like I'd want them anymore.

 

are you seriously saying that you'd quit the whole game over 1 character being added? At that point, We're talking a you problem and not a game problem.

24 minutes ago, Plushical said:

That is all. 

Good, because none of that holds water anyways.

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I think what most people are hoping for with Wagstaff in DST is an explanation on why he, probably one of the most lore-heavy characters to be added in recent years, is a base game character exclusive to singleplayer. That wasn't answered in the Hamlet release trailer, and we don't know anything else otherwise.

- As for the Thumper, I can imagine it's going to be nerfed/rebalanced in a way that'll be fair to the other wood gathering characters in the game. I got no examples for how, I'll leave that up to Klei. 
- For the Teletools however, I see them as balanced already. The range they offer will not always be enough to reach the Lunar Islands or Atrium. Even if they are, the telebrella runs on limited durability, so traveling back and forth will not last forever, so Wagstaff isn't exactly a pick-and-switch character. Also, the telelocator does all of this already so why is no one complaining about that?
- The goggles though are completely balanced. They aren't made to be used by the rest of the cast, and the fryfocals only deal 50 damage a shot, not 100, with only 10 uses.

If Wagstaff is tossed into DST in the future with the rest of the rebalances in the future, I have hope he'll be balanced to fit in with the rest of the cast. Not like he needs much changed.

Also Wormwood's main perks are grounded for use in literally every world. If you play him for the hayfever avoidance, you're using him wrong.

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I figured the willow update had debunked the whole "but think of grief!" thing.

Everthing is griefable in dont starve. You can open a fridge and click your mouse2 button 40 times and you just griefed. 

The point is dealing with griefing means you call a votekick. It passes and they're gone. That's how you deal with grief. You don't restrict gameplay because of potential malevolent people. Otherwise you wouldn't be able to develop anything.

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Klei stated Wormwood is getting reworked, and so is Warly. We can imagine the same thing would happen for Wagstaff, making his inventions more balanced and useful for singleplayer. The reason I voted for Wagstaff was for both that jucy, jucy lore, the fact that I like his personality as a character, and his interesting and creative playstyle which I enjoy.

Also Wormwood is superior to Wheeler, see above in "unique and creative playstyle"

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2 hours ago, Raspberry Shake said:

Klei stated Wormwood is getting reworked, and so is Warly. We can imagine the same thing would happen for Wagstaff, making his inventions more balanced and useful for singleplayer. The reason I voted for Wagstaff was for both that jucy, jucy lore, the fact that I like his personality as a character, and his interesting and creative playstyle which I enjoy.

Also Wormwood is superior to Wheeler, see above in "unique and creative playstyle"

Is Wormwood getting reworked though ? They said that they will add him to DST, nothing about changing him.

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7 hours ago, Plushical said:

So, it seems many people want Wagstaff to be added. Sorry, but that's a terrible idea, and Klei made the right call adding Wormwood and Warly instead of him. Well, almost the right call...

I'm just going to ignore that since it's riddled with bias... but then again so is this whole post so touché.

7 hours ago, Plushical said:

Anyway, I guess we'll start with the most obvious problem- the revolutionary Thumper. You can plant 39 Pinecones around it, essentially meaning you can grow up to 39 Evergreens - and destroy them all plus their stumps in 6 seconds.

This isn't even a bad thing. As "fun" as chopping for 8 minutes I'd really... rather not.

7 hours ago, Plushical said:

That's faster than Maxwell and Woodie combined. Hey, you guys want that Woodie rework so bad, right? Imagine if he did get refreshed, but then he's still ultimately a bad wood gatherer thanks to the Thumper being available by everyone via Celestial Portal. 

Which is again, fine. It's stationary, characters' aren't. It's a nice addition to the base, but if you're off traveling elsewhere you can still get a handy boost as either Maxwell or Woodie. Even then like... we have reworks coming, and I hope to all heck that they focus on the Shadow Magic and the Werebeaver. Tree-chopping isn't interesting, it's tedious. I'm looking at you Gorge.

I'd say the only valid point here is the Celestial Portal since it's notorious for messing with character balance. Luckily Wagstaff's goggles are limited to him, so he'd still have something to keep players from switching, though I'm unsure if it'd be enough.

7 hours ago, Plushical said:

It goes past resources as well; the Thumper is the best griefing tool. Just drop it in the middle of a base and bam, it's all gone. Griefing exists... it happens all the time. Rollbacks don't do any good, especially since there is a set saving point. As long as progress is wasted, the griefer's job is done. Flingo-matics suppress fire and hammers are slow enough to get kicked before extreme damage, but what the hell are you going to do when Albert Einstein shows up and instantly destroys the entire base? Do we want to give griefers this opportunity?

Already been pointed out a million times in-thread and out-thread how horrible an idea it is to use "grief" potential as a point.

7 hours ago, Plushical said:

And then we have a slightly less revolutionary thing... Telequipment. This gear was already arguably overpowered in Singleplayer, now get ready for:

Teleporting to the Lunar Island (guess there's no reason for boats to exist anymore)
Teleporting to the Atrium (because screw the little journey over there)
Teleporting through Oasis' sandstorm  (even less reason not to kill antlion now)

This seems to be missing the fundamental problem that you still have to get there normally to place the structure. Wortox would be more problematic with being able to skip into the atrium with a right-click. Not to mention you can only have one location active at a time, and it's one-way. You'll still have to sail to get there to place it, and then sail back once you teleport to it. Moot point.

Also who even cares about sandstorms?

7 hours ago, Plushical said:

The goggles aren't a problem of course, other than the fact that they make everyone else nearsighted so Wagstaff is just a character who partially only benefits himself in a game focused on survival together, but meh.

You've already proved how useful the teleporter and thumper would be. Even if not nearly as powerful as you've exaggerated it's still a plus to the team—just like Winona catapults. No issue here.

7 hours ago, Plushical said:

A more concerning thing would be the Fuelweaver exploit...

Exploits are exploits. Best case scenario the exploit gets properly taken care of. It shouldn't influence balance, because it's unintended in the first place.

7 hours ago, Plushical said:

I can almost already hear counter-arguments. "Remove the revolutionary gear!" But, why? Why even call him Wagstaff anymore?

If anything, Wagstaff could get a rework with NEW gadgets. Not just tear down his character into nothingness.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Honestly it feel like I should bring up some actual counterpoints, since these are hardly points at all.

Thematically - Wagstaff sort of falls into the role that Winona has in DST, and she his role in DS. Both bring new mechanical gizmos. It's sorta redundant to have both of them in the same place—even if the exact mechanics aren't quite the same.

Relation - No one in Don't Starve Together's playable characters directly know one another before the Constant—apart from Maxwell knowing everyone. The most we get is Wendy sorta feeling a bond with Maxwell. Wagstaff would directly know WX-78, and most likely Winona (though he may have just been that reclusive boss you never got to see, who knows).

Story-wise - This one is hard, because only Klei knows his exact place in the story. His static-effect suggests that he's "out of world projected", which can result in any number of problems. True, he can still be like this with the other characters, but there might be more in-store for him—in fact I wouldn't be surprised if a bunch of the other cast all joining up for the final showdown against "Them".

Honestly Wagstaff seems more antagonistic than anything, he wants to use Dark Magic which is a very very bad idea. Maybe the "real" him will crop up at the end of this story arc and he'll wind up the next one on the throne. Only Klei knows for sure.

As far as mechanically though? There's not really an issue.

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10 minutes ago, Zeklo said:

Not to mention you can only have one location active at a time, and it's one-way. You'll still have to sail to get there to place it, and then sail back once you teleport to it. Moot point.

It's not one way. You can place two telipads(or telelocators) at the start and end points, then stand directly on top of the structure and activate to teleport back and forth between both areas. Not many people know this is a feature.
So technically OP is right, you theoretically only need one trip, but it still requires some level of maintenance either way with mass crafting telebrellas or refilling the telelocators with purple gems each time.

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6 minutes ago, Chris1448 said:

It's not one way. You can place two telipads(or telelocators) at the start and end points, then stand directly on top of the structure and activate to teleport back and forth between both areas. Not many people know this is a feature.
So technically OP is right, you theoretically only need one trip, but it still requires some level of maintenance either way with mass crafting telebrellas or refilling the telelocators with purple gems each time.

Curious. There's also the matter of distance, due to a limited range. Plus if the Lunar Island & a different location (in this example, the Oasis) are too close together then you'll only be able to have a single set of portals (out side of different shards), lest they intertwine and you randomly travel between them and end up wasting materials.

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3 minutes ago, Zeklo said:

Curious. There's also the matter of distance, due to a limited range. Plus if the Lunar Island & a different location (in this example, the Oasis) are too close together then you'll only be able to have a single set of portals (out side of different shards), lest they intertwine and you randomly travel between them and end up wasting materials.

Distance is a valid issue. If the Lunar Island is far enough from the mainland, you can't teleport back and forth from it. But I can't really see that being an issue when the telipad's range spans at least half of a map.
As for the Lunar Island and other point being an issue, the telipad, to my knowledge, prioritizes the closest pad when choosing where to go. So yeah, if another point of interest is too close to the lunar island setup, it'll mess up the priority of the first telipad.

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Out of Wormwood, Wheeler, Wilba, and Wagstaff; Wormwood was possibly the best option.

Wormwood's has personal perks and teammate perks, most notably, since he only heals using healing items (and maybe Wortox' souls, but we will see) he is going to eat less healing food (therefore more for everyone), he also has an AoE tooth trap that uses stingers (yes, the very item most people hate), and can produce living logs (minor advantage, but hey). He can also plant without basic/advanced farms, meaning you don't have to dedicate the enormous amount of space (and resources) to this hideous things, in order to have dragon fruit, and it even encourages the planting of other veggies for filler as you now don't need to make up space for them.

Wheeler has 4 perks: dodge, navigadget, pew-matic, and inherent speed + extra speed per empty inventory space. The first and last ones are exclusive to her; maybe she could craft pew-matics and navigadget for the rest of the team, but very likely they will end up like Willow's lighter cooking mechanic. She would be an interesting character, but would add little to nothing to DST itself.

Wilba kind of enters in the same boat as Wheeler, but would also be a Wolfgang 2.0 merged with combat werebeaver, at least Wheeler adds a slightly more different combat mechanic since she has lower health, but carries her amazing pew-matic and can dodge.

Wagstaff has only 2 tools that the other characters can use: thumper and telebrella + telebase. Most of the goggles/glasses is logical that if another character other than Wagstaff (and maybe Wickerbottom since she uses glasses) uses them, they see less (get the same blur effect as Wagstaff), only exception to this would be the thermal ones. The telebase and telebrella are also tricky, in order to make the telebase useful, you need the telebrella, therefore to avoid having to make Wagstaff be the main telebrella manufacturer (and be annoyed by people asking for a crafted one) you would have to give the recipe to other characters, or add some way to give other characters the recipe (say Wagstaff can make a blueprint for it). As for the thumper killing off Woodie or Maxwell's niche, bearger already does that, the only thing this will do is thump the bearger lumberjack meta (ha!), and in fact could improve Woodie as he benefits from planting trees (so he would be the operation manager of the thumper! Or in other words, the one that uses it xD).

At the end of the day, Wormwood was the best option between the 4 characters, the one that could add the most to DST.

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19 hours ago, Plushical said:

Anyway, I guess we'll start with the most obvious problem- the revolutionary Thumper. You can plant 39 Pinecones around it, essentially meaning you can grow up to 39 Evergreens - and destroy them all plus their stumps in 6 seconds.

That's exactly why i want him to be added! And after building that I'm gonna switch for other character immediately xD

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Personally (and thus this is entirely a personal opinion) I felt Wagstaff was a boring character in the long run, maybe because I have a different playstyle or havent found yet interesting stuff to do as him, his glasses mechanic was too annoying for me to work around it.

I can see the benefits his inventions would bring to DST though, I just hope he doesn't become that character someone has to mandatory log in as because "We NEED to craft the telipads ASAP because its the only and most efficient way to move around". Usually the game offers several ways to do things, his telipad offers a strong benefit too cheaply that would be hard to replace otherwise.

That being said, I wouldn't mind if he gets added (and perhaps if they nerf his telipads, better) but I'm probably not playing as him as I find him boring and annoying in his current state (unless he is made more interesting at DST). And this is not something I feel with Wormwood or Warly, which I can't wait to play as on DST.

 

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