poll Are characters balanced?

[-Nick-]

Which Character do you believe is the most balanced so far?

[sinisterrkid]

I like how even Wes has one vote but WX has zero.

(at the time of posting)

[trinket_4]

18 minutes ago, sinisterrkid said:

I like how even Wes has one vote but WX has zero.

(at the time of posting)

WX is as broken as all mod characters

[GenomeSquirrel]

Mind defining balance, I'm not sure if I should pick the most middle of middle tier, the best mix strengths and weaknesses, e.c.t.

[Lammarr]

They're all unbalanced in their own ways.

[Canis]

Im bored, time to go needlessly in depth. (Note when I talk about how fun a character is, it's obviously subjective, naturally.)

I'll rate the character with 1 to 3 stars. 1 being that they are unbalanced, 2 being that they are balanced but not necessarily that fun, and 3 being balanced and fun.

** Wilson: He's the default. The middle of the road. No downsides, with a very situational upside. Yes, of course he's balanced, but that's because he puts the idea of "Balancing good upsides with harsh downsides" and throws it into the bin.

*** Willow: Her biggest upside is Bernie, and her biggest downside is not being able to keep warm as well in Winter, with a few small upsides sprinkled in. She's okay.

* Wolfgang: Great upside, virtually no downside. Next.

** Wendy: Abigail is cool and all, but her AI makes her suicidal a lot of the time, leaving Wendy with just downsides until Abigail respawns. I guess it's balanced, but it's not necessarily fun imo.

* WX-78: If you don't eat gears, WX is just a Wilson that takes small amounts of water damage. Emphasis on "small amounts." Now lets see if this compares to having his health go from 150 to a whopping 400. Not really a small amount. No.

* Wickerbottom: Her books can be utilized for farming and her advanced science knowledge can prove irreplaceable during early game in some people's playstyles. The downside is that stale/spoiled food don't give as much stats, and she can't sleep. The former is negated if she eats things fresh (which is easy as she is geared towards a farming playstyle) and the latter is just, meh. Sleeping is more useful than people like me make it out to be (ex: When you have a health problem but have too much food). However, I'd still firmly say that Wickerbottom's upsides greatly overshadow her downsides, hence why she's commonly part of the "Holy Trinity" (before the reworks).

* Woodie: He flat out doesn't have a downside. No.

 Wes: No.

** Maxwell: 75 health forces you to play more carefully, which isn't that much to ask as Maxwell's main job is to be a harvester and not necessarily combat. I'd say that he is balanced, but how fun he can be is up for debate.

*** Wigfrid: Being a carnivore isn't that bad once you establish yourself, albeit early game is a tad more stressful. Her combat advantages are nothing to scoff at, even if Wolfgang is situationally better. However, she isn't that overpowered, and she's nowhere near underpowered and/or boring to play. Wigfrid is fine in my book.

***? Webber: Can produce chests-full of silk, glands, and monster meat in a short time, at the cost of a much lower sanity cap. This actually isn't as much of a problem as it initially seems as Webber players can manage their sanity easier. He's a monster, so pigs/bunnymen/catcoons hate em. I'd say he is on the fence of balanced and OP. He still 100% needs a rework, badly.

* Winona: No downsides. However, her upsides are situational and aren't that mobile (as they're structures) so away from her machines, she's just a slightly better Wilson. Still, from the way Im "scoring" this, I'll call her unbalanced, but not necessarily OP.

*** Warly: Great downside (Very powerful foods) paired with a harsh downside (Only eating crock pot meals), this is, hands down, my most favorite character to showcase when talking about my ideal vision of balance. Two great big thumbs up from me.

* Wortox: You could argue that Wortox's downside of only receiving half of the stats given by mortal food is very noticeable and almost constantly forces Wortox into low sanity as he is forced to eat souls. However, do note that souls are very, very, very, very, very, very easy to get, and the difficulty of insanity is not that difficult in reality once you know how to handle it.

*** Wormwood: Wormwood is fine. His downside of not gaining health by foods means that he can't  rely on things like pierogi and blue caps, which means that he has to shift his playstyle and seek out things like spider glands. This goes pretty well with the fact that he can plant seeds for free without a farm.

? Wurt: I can't give a full answer on Wurt yet as Klei is still working out the bugs, but from what I've experienced, Wurt is at her strongest when the Merm King is alive. Again, I can't give a definitive yes or no on Wurt yet.

[Jessie_]

all characters should be overpowered

[Canis]

3 minutes ago, Jessie223 said:

all characters should be overpowered

Imo a good downside makes or breaks a character for me. Of course, upsides are equally as important. This idea is most likely why I have gotten more and more bored with the new/reworked DST characters...

[Zeklo]

I ended up voting Wendy & Webber (among others) mostly because I find them [fairly] balanced. However with recent updates shifting the norm they definitely fall victim to being overshadowed. In order to better align with this new trend they absolutely need to be tweaked.

[Jessie_]

i can think of a lot more things to waste my time on than watch dweebs trying to argue what's "balanced" or "unbalanced", which is like half of the arguments on this forums

just go play the game

[Zeklo]

2 minutes ago, Jessie223 said:

i can think of a lot more things to waste my time on than watch dweebs trying to argue what's "balanced" or "unbalanced", which is like half of the arguments on this forums

just go play the game

Yet you still ended up commenting on the thread for no reason. If you have nothing to add then don't comment.

Simple.

[Mr.Tarunio]

all character are themselves, there is no standard but how easy they can survive and what makes people play the game more.

Spoiler

but wx is bes, destroy all humans but 1.

 

[sinisterrkid]

57 minutes ago, Canis said:

Imo a good downside makes or breaks a character for me. Of course, upsides are equally as important. This idea is most likely why I have gotten more and more bored with the new/reworked DST characters...

I also love a good downside, but let's not pretend that before the reworks there were these big downsides that were erased. And all the added upsides on the reworks are optional stuff:

Winona's structures

Willow's new Bernie

Woodie's forms (except during full moon, but no big difference from full moon beaver there)

 

(Which is different than say, Wolfgang automatically getting a super buff when you eat a meatball)

 

Which is why I sincerely and politely don't resonate with your comments regarding your striking shift of opinion of the game, including the ones talking about difficulty, since it's very easy making the game harder on World settings and/or personal rules (I for instance have never rolled back, just resetting the world instead, and if I can't reach a touchstone or amulet in ghost form before the world regenerates itself, that's tough luck, making death in DST actually less forgiving than in solo DS)

I believe, and correct me if I'm wrong here, but it seems you care about the official rules more than me, as if you had to play not only withing, but fulfilling all official proposals the game offers.

[Canis]

1 minute ago, sinisterrkid said:

I believe, and correct me if I'm wrong here, but it seems you care about the official rules more than me, as if you had to play not only withing, but fulfilling all official proposals the game offers.

Meh? You honestly might be onto something, I'm most likely just really stubborn. I just like uniqueness, whether it be upside or downside.

[sinisterrkid]

Just now, Canis said:

Meh? You honestly might be onto something, I'm most likely just really stubborn. I just like uniqueness, whether it be upside or downside.

Yeah, I totally get it. I hope I didn't come across as de-legitimizing your concerns and preferences.

[Mike23Ua]

Considering only about 5 characters of the 15+ roster of playable characters have seen their promised character refreshes... the answer is no, the characters are not balanced.

not even probably 35% balanced.

[Seero]

1 hour ago, Canis said:

** Maxwell: 75 health forces you to play more carefully, which isn't that much to ask as Maxwell's main job is to be a harvester and not necessarily combat. I'd say that he is balanced, but how fun he can be is up for debate.

 

I'm going to go EVEN MORE indepth because I play solo and main Maxwell. 

So what happens when you give the low health pool guy suited for harvesting every job? Well it's actually pretty fun. I enjoy being able to harvest more and it really helps when playing solo games, since this game was made for multiple people, so having those minions help a lot with progressing faster as if you had more people. His low health pool really balances him out considering that I cannot just go 500 days without avoiding a raidboss.

Even if I bring a lot of armor/healing it's pretty difficult for me atleast since i'm already inept at fighting raidbosses but at that point it's a me problem.

 

[Bernado1]

1 hour ago, Jessie223 said:

i can think of a lot more things to waste my time on than watch dweebs trying to argue what's "balanced" or "unbalanced", which is like half of the arguments on this forums

just go play the game

And I thought only Warly could handle this much salt...

[Jessie_]

3 minutes ago, Bernado1 said:

And I thought only Warly could handle this much salt...

everyone that cares about "character balance" or "character tier lists" or whatever is a dweeb

this is just fact, sorry

[Bernado1]

12 minutes ago, Jessie223 said:

everyone that cares about "character balance" or "character tier lists" or whatever is a dweeb

That’s a great way to thank the developers for the work putted into the new characters rework.

[Theukon-dos]

I think that the most balanced characters are Wigfrid, Waxwell, Warly, and Wormwood.

They all offer strong utility with a good downside to back it down. I need more experience wiht Wurt to say for certain, but for now she's feeling pretty good.

 

Everyone else is either lacking in a proper downside, or a bit on the weak side in the case of Wendy and Wes.

 

However, I think something that's important to realize is that a good downside isn't just about balancing a character. Often times, a good downside is the most fun part about the character.

Ask nearly, if not any Wormwood main. They'll tell you that one of there favorite things about playing him is not being able to heal from food. It gives them new challanges and obsticals to overcome, and changes how they play in a way that they may not have done otherwise.

 

Likewise with Warly, I love how he makes starvation an actual threat that you have to be cautious about, even if you can fairly easally cheese it with meaty stew & bacon and eggs.

 

Now I don't think that every character needs to be balanced with this philosophy, however, I do think that Klei should try and go above just faster hunger/sanity drain, as that tends to be rather boring

 

And please, get rid of Damage penelties in they're entirty. they where fine in DS, but now things have way more HP, and they just hurt WAY more. seriously, on average, a 25% decrease in damage would be equivelent to a 75% decrease in damage in DS, due to how much more HP everything has. 

[Rosten]

The characters aren't really balanced, and a few of them just don't really work in a multiplayer setting without everyone playing them (i.e. Webber, rip.) 

[Jessie_]

15 minutes ago, Bernado1 said:

That’s a great way to thank the developers for the work putted into the new characters rework.

the developers don't care about either of those things

this is a good thing

[Seero]

1 hour ago, Zeklo said:

Yet you still ended up commenting on the thread for no reason. If you have nothing to add then don't comment.

Simple.

I've had an idea of a thread to unite everyone's view on what's balanced or not, and what the game needs. Right now I feel like there is a huge division on what people think is balanced/unbalanced and i'm really not a fan of it, it becomes harder to make suggestions and I feel like something can be changed - no forcing but showing others a better way to think about balancing, to increase quality and decrease the division. 

[Canis]

14 minutes ago, Seero said:

I've had an idea of a thread to unite everyone's view on what's balanced or not, and what the game needs. Right now I feel like there is a huge division on what people think is balanced/unbalanced and i'm really not a fan of it, it becomes harder to make suggestions and I feel like something can be changed - no forcing but showing others a better way to think about balancing, to increase quality and decrease the division. 

As someone who made a large thread about the game's balance and attempted to propose changes to fix them on a large scale, I can tell you one thing:

Don't.