My concerns on a Wendy rework. As a Wendy main.

[Terra B Welch]

19 minutes ago, WoodieMain45684 said:

First off, I do not think I have over 8 minutes of Wendy gameplay in, but I have played with many friends who are Wendys (like almost 40% of my gameplay time, she seems to be a somewhat popular main). I kinda agree that she doesn't need too much to make her good (I've seen what abi does to shadow splumonkeys). I do feel like her gameplay is kinda... Dull? Maybe? It's like she has one job (crowd control) and she does it well. This isn't necessarily a problem. In fact just from an outsiders perspective, she is pretty close to balanced (prerework sense). If klei were to rework her, I don't think they would get rid of abagail's viability, but rather add to Wendy's toolbox of tricks. Woodie was probably just an odd exception because compared to other characters he honestly had too much to manage (beaverness meter and high sanity drain beaver). Wendy doesn't have too much to manage aside from the state of Abagail. So, this leads me to believe Wendy's rework will be more similar to Willow's than Woodie's.

One can hope!

[mirrormind]

it'd be nice if wendy was something other then the character who takes 25% longer to kill everything in the game , and has to rely on a follower with no combat animations to kill everything for her during only specific times of the day . and it only works on most mobs that are already easy to kill while not being possible against most mobs that are actually more difficult

would be nice if abigail was just a ghost copy of wendy who followed her around , and can be given any kind armor and weapons to fight or can be given tools to harvest resources like the player can . follows wendy around on default and right clicking tells her to interact with things . as opposed to abigail being a floating aoe that does nothing but aoe and only does it well for half or less of the day

[Zeklo]

I think a rework that would be sorta crazy, though highly unlikely, would be the ability for Wendy to "give their soul" to Abigail essentially switching characters. So Wendy would become the ghost and you could play as Abigail (the main issue here being the name, and potentially if they're non-identical twins).

Each of the twins would have different abilities as a character and as a ghost or something along those lines.

[56933043043]

To think of where Klei might direct their rework, we'd have to consider how the perks work together and the playstyle they lead towards. Here are Wendy's perks right now:

-Has a friendly ally that is spawned from killing something , with 600 health that deals damage in an area to anything directly adjacent, highest at night. Regenerates 1 health a second, player needs to wait until a cooldown to respawn the ally.(unless you craft multiple abigail's flowers: each flower has an individual cooldown, so you can avoid it by doing this.)

-Herself hits for less damage in combat(only for 3/4 of her damage)

-Suffers slightly less sanity drain

-Everything else about this character is identical to Wilson, minus the beard.

The first perk is obviously the one that alters how you'd play different from the default character the most: Abigail can take the aggro from multiple mobs at once(spider quarry and splumonkeys in the ruins, and beehives stand out), which would normally stunlock the player and make it either extremely dangerous or a tedious and tense experience, depending on the kiting involved. Abigail lets the player tackle these situations that for other characters would be something to avoid. This is the only real difference in playstyle Wendy offers.

The second perk means that Wendy just takes longer to kill everything. Due to how combat in DST works(kiting) this translates to almost entirely more time spent killing anything and everything while Abigail is down(and many hard-hitting mobs and bosses WILL often take her out). Since there is no real way to control Abigail, this doesn't offer a difference in playstyle: just more time spent fighting menial mobs when Abigail is dead.

The third perk is...very very minor. While a top hat does negate the sanity drain from dusk entirely only for Wendy, the Tam o' Shanter exists and does that for any character. And food items are more impactful when it comes to sanity than individual character sanity drain. 

To expand Wendy's playstyle, either the one unique perk that changes her playstyle should be refined and expanded on, or other perks to flesh out what Wendy can do should be added. Right now, Wendy's only grace is Abigail. While Abigail is difficult to use at times, she indeed does change up Wendy's playstyle, so it's not nearly as bad as Winona or Wes, who don't offer any playstyle difference.

(I'm tired of writing playstyle)

If it was easier to keep Abigail alive and ways to have her more manipulable(a way to have her target a specific mob or..perhaps be ABIGAIL HERSELF as @Zeklo says), her playstyle would be more distinct and engaging.

Less time fighting as Wilson with 0.75x damage, more time fighting with an ally that can be controlled SOMEWHAT, please. Abigail is supposed to be Wendy's deceased twin sister, it makes sense that they'd be able to syncronize their thinking somehow. Maybe even have Abigail tell Wendy the mobs she's fighting at the moment?

 

[AnitaCoffee]

I'm refraining from saying much until it gets here, because I just don't know what they'll do. I will say however, I'm all for a Willow style upgrade, or just leaving her alone besides making Abigail a bit more intuitive. I'd hate to see something like the Woodie rework, which alters the base game play.

Not on this Wendy / character-rework thread, but many others I've seen, it seems like people who don't play Wendy much are the loudest. They want her to be entirely different. With Woodie, I could kind of see it because I personally didn't run into many Woodie mains. With Wendy I see them regularly out in the wilds of public servers. Crossing my fingers they'll do her justice, and not a disservice to the many people who already enjoy  her. 

[Fuffles]

Honestly I'd like Wendy to have more to do with death after the rework, something neat would be that she suffers less from the revive penalties (be it by a telltale heart or the portal) or that Ghosts are neutral to her, she doesnt lose any sanity from digging graves, you know, just the classic Morbid Wendy Things

[Cpt. KatKit]

She already has the sacrifice things to return your dead sister's ghost going on. She could make Abigail deal more damage by sacrificing more creatures or harming them\herself to trigger Abigail's wrath. She could also mourn her dead sister at a memorial grave to increase the flower's current level for faster respawning..^{Oh am just throwing suggestions around don't mind me} 

 

They could also go full Willow and make her immune to sanity drain from darkness . Then she can happily skip around in complete darkness all day (until Charlie or monsters manage to kill her).

[Zeklo]

10 minutes ago, FuffledBeeQueen said:

something neat would be that she suffers less from the revive penalties (be it by a telltale heart or the portal)

Perks that require you to die are hardly perks at all. You're better off playing a character with less chance to die then one who has a small safety net for failure—the goal is to not fail in the first place.

10 minutes ago, FuffledBeeQueen said:

or that Ghosts are neutral to her, she doesnt lose any sanity from digging graves, you know, just the classic Morbid Wendy Things

I could see these being things. Heck maybe even make her sanity not drain when there's a ghost character—only problem with that is the point of said drain is the promote the revival of said dead character.

[Superlucas1231]

Personally, I feel like Abby just needs to have a bit more hp and a better A.I. With that being said, I really hate how Wendy herself is just uninteresting.

Her sanity perk is full on irrelevant since she's going to take more time killing things and her dmg mod is annoying at best.

I personally just want to see Wendy herself have some sort of support role during battle. It doesn't even need to be something like Warlys cooking, just something for Wendy to do to help Abby be more useful and help her fight anything that isn't groups of trash mobs. I mean, from what I've seen, Wendys whole gameplay can be summed up as "Abby kills spiders in groups while Wendy spams emote in a corner." It personally feels more like a master and slave relationship and not a sister and sister relationship. 

That being said, i only played like, what, 10 hours worth of Wendy. Hell if I know anything about what would make her good or bad

[broskeet]

11 hours ago, Viktor234 said:

Wes is more in need of an update than Wendy: Wendy and Wes share the same penalties but Wes got even more penalties, and playing as Wes won't make only your life harder, it will also make the life of your teammates harder. The significant amount wants to see a Wendy update because Wendy is, compared to Wes, a popular character. I see about one Wendy per Klei Official Server but not a single Wes in any Klei Official Server.

From what I've heard, Wes is the "challenge character", so i guess hes supposed to be hard. That being said, I don't think it's likely that he will receive a rework for a while.

[56933043043]

2 hours ago, Superlucas1231 said:

Personally, I feel like Abby just needs to have a bit more hp and a better A.I. With that being said, I really hate how Wendy herself is just uninteresting.

Her sanity perk is full on irrelevant since she's going to take more time killing things and her dmg mod is annoying at best.

I personally just want to see Wendy herself have some sort of support role during battle. It doesn't even need to be something like Warlys cooking, just something for Wendy to do to help Abby be more useful and help her fight anything that isn't groups of trash mobs. I mean, from what I've seen, Wendys whole gameplay can be summed up as "Abby kills spiders in groups while Wendy spams emote in a corner." It personally feels more like a master and slave relationship and not a sister and sister relationship. 

That being said, i only played like, what, 10 hours worth of Wendy. Hell if I know anything about what would make her good or bad

Nothing is stopping you from attacking the mobs that Abigail is also attacking. It actually helps Abigail stay alive if you help her kill them all quicker.

However, I'd like the player to have something more unique to do while Abigail is fighting mobs,such as maybe pulling Abigail into some kind of "dodge" state as she's about to get attacked. Interesting decisions make a playstyle.

[Matthiola]

13 hours ago, Viktor234 said:

Wes is more in need of an update than Wendy: Wendy and Wes share the same penalties but Wes got even more penalties, and playing as Wes won't make only your life harder, it will also make the life of your teammates harder. The significant amount wants to see a Wendy update because Wendy is, compared to Wes, a popular character. I see about one Wendy per Klei Official Server but not a single Wes in any Klei Official Server.

Wes is meant to be a challenge character, so he doesn't really need a rework

[56933043043]

15 hours ago, Viktor234 said:

Wes is more in need of an update than Wendy: Wendy and Wes share the same penalties but Wes got even more penalties, and playing as Wes won't make only your life harder, it will also make the life of your teammates harder. The significant amount wants to see a Wendy update because Wendy is, compared to Wes, a popular character. I see about one Wendy per Klei Official Server but not a single Wes in any Klei Official Server.

Wes is unpopular because he doesn't talk , looks ugly, and his perks don't offer much of a playstyle change. Not a particularly fun character to play.

[00petar00]

22 hours ago, Terra M Welch said:

So there's been 3 reworks so far(I don't count Warly, he's a new character to me, not a rework) and so far it seems two were just minor additions and tweaks(Winona with her catapults and hunger mechanic, Willow got fire immunity, some cold weakness and heat resistance and a better bernie) and one feels like a complete "curveball" overhaul.(Woodie, I know he was buffed recently so he's actually good now but still...)

A significant amount of the forum is saying Wendy is next, and I am concerned that Klei will throw another curveball.
Personally in my opinion all Wendy needs is a smarter(and commandable) Abigail, I feel that Wendy is good enough as is apart from Abigail being a problem on occasion. To me, this would be a change more akin to Winona and WIllow, just a minor tweak. I wouldn't mind other minor tweaks but I wouldn't want anything akin to Woodie's straight up overhaul.

But I'm worried that's what will happen with Wendy. I'd love to only see some minor QoL changes to her, but I'm worried Klei will throw the curveball again, and the way Wendy will be played will be completely changed.

Personally I would still like for Wendy to play the same as she currently does, only adding a few QoL additions to make her a bit of a better team player. Please Klei, no big overhaul curveballs, just some QoL tweaks.

I think differently from you as we now have Woodie that is pretty strong character with the buffs done to him a day ago, he is stronger then Wendy because he is much more versatile and his form has an aoe attack that can farm spiders or any other grouped creatures.

For Wendy to be in a good shape and for people to pick her in some situations over all the other characters, she needs some changes. I will say that they don't need to be big changes, maybe buff Abigail so that it is better against group creatures then Woodie and some other stat buffs/changes for her to climb to at least top tier characters.

I don't know why you mind that Woodie had such a big change, isn't it better for characters to be versatile? Maybe its just me as i am a Wickerbottom player but i love the new Woodie, old one was obsolete and maxwell gathered wood faster then him and now he is a top tier character. 

I agree with you that not everyone likes having their character changed that much but he is probably an exception as klei thought they could make something cool and forms turned out great artwise and feel really fluid and useful ingame.

Why my thoughts may differ from others is because i want all characters to have their roles in game where they are stronger then others and you may want to pick them for that. I don't want to see characters like the old Woodie, left and forgotten for years while being totally obsolete. It is hard to balance characters in this way because they'd need to do big changes to characters and most players that fell in love with the current ones will feel like they lost their character.

Would Woodie players feel happy if they kept his only form from before and just did some QOL changes and left him obsolete again? Isn't it much better now?

21 hours ago, Viktor234 said:

Wes is more in need of an update than Wendy: Wendy and Wes share the same penalties but Wes got even more penalties, and playing as Wes won't make only your life harder, it will also make the life of your teammates harder. The significant amount wants to see a Wendy update because Wendy is, compared to Wes, a popular character. I see about one Wendy per Klei Official Server but not a single Wes in any Klei Official Server.

Wes is made to be a hardmode character and that is why you don't see him on the servers, it would be fine if players picked him to play alone but you are actually making it harder on your whole team when you pick him. I am not against other players picking him when i play with them because i can kill any boss or get anything on my own and usually Wes players even though their character has many weaknesses, they are good players because they want to make the game harder for them because they'll breeze though it with other characters.

21 hours ago, Cosheeta said:

I'd say less is more, these reworks are damn complex. Not in the sense that they're hard to grasp, just that they feel cluttered and not exactly implemented in any elegant manner. I think that the new gameplay don't blend in well with other characters in the sense that you can't translate the experience learned between characters well, it's like learning a whole new meta or self-contained minigame each time. Disjointed experience.

On top of that, I also believe they are kind of rocking the pillars of thematic consistency these character's stand upon. I get the feeling the worry here is based on a thematic disturbance.

I know I've beaten this horse in just about every topic only today but, I stand by my statement, dev team seems to misunderstand where their own game came from. Shallow interpretations.

Fan-fic esque.

Isn't it good that you can't translate the experience between characters? Every character should be different and you should need to invest some time into learning them. Also for older players that don't have much left to do, it is really great as we have  something else to invest our time into. That just makes the characters complex and even more worth learning.

[Petit Citron]

On 14/09/2019 at 2:36 PM, sinisterrkid said:

Then again, what Klei did with Warly and Woodie was super unexpected and fun, so if they announce a big rework I'd be excited too.

I strongly agree with this

Many selfish complaints about the fact their main character they have been playing for 97989836125 years is not refreshed exactly the way they wanted to. We just have to get over it, learn to play with the new mechanics and have fun.

Don't Starve is getting old, that's where new refreshes are more interesting than just minor tweaks.

 

I've never played Wendy myself, but rather with her in my team. What about an idol she could craft with a durability, that makes Abigail stop whatever she's doing and come back at you ?

[user1464576869]

1 hour ago, 00petar00 said:

Isn't it good that you can't translate the experience between characters? Every character should be different and you should need to invest some time into learning them. Also for older players that don't have much left to do, it is really great as we have  something else to invest our time into. That just makes the characters complex and even more worth learning.

Suppose it's matter of taste. I'm not entirely certain why it rubs me the wrong way. I just think there is some elegance to maximise depth with as little complexity as possible.

This probably comes off as a really obtuse example as well as hyberbole, but it's merely a description on how I interpret the experience. Mario usually has simpler powerups that translate well from his base-control scheme. Mostly adding function to the buttons you already utilize, the jump or action button. Playing these DST characters recently feels like instead of mario's powerups adding subtle changes for lots of depth, it swaps mario out for an entire game of tetris, or candy crush, or minecraft, in the same level. Different rules / meta-bars / controls that don't apply in the rest of the game anywhere else. And I do mean the entire separate game shoved into the level, experience and enchanting and stacking blocks and matching colours, advancing to next levels...

That probably won't sound so bad to everyone but, to me it's a bipolar Wario Ware experience. It's harder to sympathize or understand each other in a group when everyone is running their own race.

And uh, most opinionated of all, well, thematically, lore wise, it also comes off as rather bizarre and bloated? So many things going on at once, what's the connection here? Not always intuitive. Some are stretching.

[Thomas Die]

i think abigial's power/health should be linked with wendys - to give an example 

wendy - half health

abigial get 0.75 health and damage

[Maxposting]

16 hours ago, Sketched_Philo said:

Abigail is supposed to be Wendy's diseased twin sister

I hate this sentence due to it's meaning

[Bleksmits]

I have idea Aby flying lantern. she flies bit ahead of her where Wendy is heading so can see more where u goo. Abi umbrella form protects from rain when Wendy stops near her. making invisibility aura around her when unwanted enemies is near. reducing radius of enemy spotting. Can haunt things when Wendy asks with same effect. Farming werepig changing mushroom colors - some body take fast that star away before base burns down.

[Orangex]

I agree that Wendy herself doesn't need much of a change, but if every character is getting a rework then I wouldn't mind too much if she got one or two small buffs to make her solo play (i.e. while Abigail is on cooldown) a little more unique.

The real potential with her rework would be the interesting abilities that could come with buffing Abigail.

Having her work together (no pun intended) with Wendy could be really useful. For example - 

• A small but obvious change to Abigail's AI so that she doesn't die so needlessly.
• Call Abigail to temporarily possess Wendy, causing her to hover and increase her movement speed, allowing Wendy to cross small rivers like Wortox and the WereGoose can
• Command Abigail to possess enemies (perhaps 3 or 5 at most) using a haunting AoE aura that causes the grouped enemies to become followers that will work/attack anything Wendy interacts with. The length of the posession could be tied to how much health the creature had at the start of the possession, for example, Spiders/Frogs/Bees would stay possessed for a whole day, Pigs or Werepigs 3/4 of a day, Beefalo/Tallbirds half a day. Monsters or Seasonal Bosses with large amounts of health would be pacified rather than being possessed.
• Reanimate the Dead! Possessing bones, bone shards, hounds teeth, player skeletons or lost survivor skeletons would increase Abigail's defence or attack damage depending on the reanimated object. Bones for defence, teeth for attack damage, skeletons for defence + attack damage (you could even see the makeshift skeleton body jiggling within Abigail)
• Item Levitation. Allow Abigail to defy gravity by levitating that heavy item at normal walking speed. Don't have enough Inventory space for that 1 important item? Want to relocate a structure that you placed incorrectly? Let Abigial carry it for a change!

Any changes would obviously come with their appropriate Sanity/Hunger/Health loss, but I would be really interested in seeing Klei come up with some Abigial specific abilities for Wendy's rework.

[EzLo54]

All I want from Wendy's rework is controllable Abigail. Being able to tell her which mob to fight and when to stop and come back to Wendy.

Due to Klei's new idea of adding completely new mechanics to characters that are being reworked on, I suggest giving her the ability of being able to make an actual station of some sort that has possible sanity aura instead of making sanity stations out of Abigail flowers. As for tweaks on her current state, I can't predict which perk would be completely removed and replaced with something new. All I can do currently is pray for her update to be decent and not a total disappointment at first like Woodie's rework.

Oh and for skins, please give us a skin for Dark Sword and Abigail's flower.

[Atkvin]

16 hours ago, Superlucas1231 said:

It personally feels more like a master and slave relationship and not a sister and sister relationship. 

An idea I had long ago was that a loving sister wouldn't just nonchalantly watch as their sibling got mauled to death, especially when they want the other to live on in their stead - that Abigail would be able to sacrifice her remaining health to heal Wendy if she saw Wendy at critical health. Which in hindsight is probably not that great an idea since it could kill Abi preemptively out of player control in a non-emergency situation, but I think it's a sentiment that could show the close relationship between them better that as you bring up, is currently very cold and unfeeling in-game.

[Prajdo]

I don't mind if they buff Abigail and possibly made her obey to player's orders. I really liked to play as Wendy when I was a novice but now I'm just angry at Abi whenever I summon her. She's so stupid. I hate things that aren't under my control in this game and simply can't stand Abigail dying during every single trip through the swamps.

I know she's not a simple tool and it's kinda necessary for her to stay out of Wendy's complete control but she should be more aware that when she dies she cannot protect Wendy anymore. I would like to see her as a protector and not as a little punk that flies around and mess with everything in the entire environment.

And I was always confused why Abi is escaping Wendy whenever she tries to approach her. I know it would be to easy to avoid Charlie by standing near her but still I think it should be a thing. It's not really that OP anymore like it was years ago. Now there's a lot more of OP light resources in the game. They are sisters and Abi wants to protect Wandy so it's irrational that they cannot even stay close to each other even for a moment.

[maciu67]

It's time to my idea about Wendy's rework:

My idea about Wendy rework:

•Every negative aura is still decreased for Wendy by 25 %Wendy deals 85% damage

•Wendy Still can summon Abigail by „bloody sacrifice” and 50 sanity points

•Abigail’s health increased from 600 HP to 750 HP and her passive health regeneration from 1 HP to 2 HP per second

•Abigail doesn’t attack any creatures around her (both aggressive, neutral and passive) as long as they don’t hurt Wendy, attack Abigail or Wendy don’t attack them

•Wendy can resurrect any dead player without any items, at a cost of 50 sanity points (to make it Wendy need to have at least 51 sanity points)

•When Wendy is protected by Abigail any ghost can’t attack her and after dug graves ghosts don't spawn.

•During full moon Abigail’s AoE attack has much bigger range

•During new moon Abigail does not have AoE and she can only attack one target at a time

•Every sanity bonuses give Wendy only 50% of original amount but if Abigail is present at Wendy the bonuses decreased to 25%. This mechanics pertain only to instant bonuses e.g. from food, resurrecting other players by Telltale Heart or picking flowers. Positive sanity auras np. equipped Garland, Tam o’ Shanter, Top Hat, Glommer’s aura etc. remain unchanged

•Wendy can craft two new items available in Magic Tab:

Shadow Orb:  Nightmare Fuel X4 + Purple gem

This is an armour for Abigail. Wendy has to give shadow orb to ghost. The armour absorbs 60% damage and have 450 durability points.

Melancholic bouquet:  Papyrus + Petals x3 + 15 sanity points

This is new resurrection item. Every character can resurrect ghost using it but players don’t get sanity poits. Bouquet spoils 6 days but it can be placed in ice box.
•When Abigail dies Wendy loses 15 sanity points

[DarkPulse91]

I feel that being able to command Abigale would be enough of a rework if done right. They could add a whole system for allowing you to command her and tell her what to target and such.

If it was just a simple thing where you can right click to direct her, then that wouldnt be interesting enough. I would WORK... but it wouldnt be enough, it would have to be a full system to it.

Maybe Wendy can be that duo character (much like ice climbers in smash) where you can control both the characters at once or something. This would separate her from willow, who currently has her beat for "has a companion that kills things". Letting Abigale and wendy have a synergy would help define her with a new playstyle and maybe even new lore