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Wendy Rework?


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So I've heard about the next rework most likely being soon for DST and people wanting a Wendy Rework. I very much want this because I play Wendy and I have some input on this possibly.

Wendy) So currently as it Stands, Wendy only deals 75% damage and loses 25% less sanity from night/dusk and other sanity auras. This is it. None of it should change, but there needs to be more that still makes sense to her character. Personally, I think one of the additions should have to do with Graves. Sanity loss should be lowered to at least 10 and the chance for ghosts should be lowered. A thought some people had was that she should also be able to more easily revive people. She might take less damage for effigies and telltale hearts (30 or 20 not 40). She should also lose less or NO (preferably) sanity from ghost players (HER SISTER IS ONE).

Abigail) as it stands for Abigail, She has her flower, takes 50 sanity to summon, has 600 health with 1hp per second of healing and does an AoE attack of 10, 20, 40, during Day, Dusk, Night, respectively. I think this is good, This currently stands very well for Wendy's role as a group mob person via Abigail. The problem is bosses and control. I think that for boss fights Wendy could make certain objects that tinker Abigail's role in the fight. They would turn Abigail into more of a support (giving Wendy MORE than 100%, higher Armor, or speed boost for a bit). These objects would take up sanity like it does to summon Abigail, though not as much. They should be a little expensive and last a decent amount of time but not too long (30 sec?) For crafting it might take nightmare fuel or petals, and items that correspond with there purpose. For better control of Abigail, maybe you could pacify, or force Abigail to follow close behind you if she is fighting something you don't want. I also think if you are in a rare situation where you have to attack Abigail and un-summon her, it should take WAY less time for her flower if you are the one to kill her.

Other Stuff) I don't want a Woodie problem again. If Wendy is reworked and a video is released, IT NEEDS TO ACTUALLY HAVE LORE. Have it be the twins playing when they are younger (this fits for what we got for Warly), something alluding to how Abigail died (or how Wendy can summon her), or how she might be related to Maxwell. NOT some random stuff of her new powers.

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At this point I really could careless if her Animated short included lore or not, I just want them to hurry up and fix Abigail so she isn’t lagging miles behind you, Refuses to attack what’s chasing you until it’s probably already too late, and what she does choose to attack probably will easily kill her (Swamp Tentacle)

Please <3

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Not a fan of any perks regarding graves or normal ghosts because graves are a one-time thing for getting resources (trinkets, early gears and gems) and ghosts are mobs available only on full moon (so every 20 days). Same with revival items really. Lowering the cost to craft them will not change anything in the long run especially since the goal of the game is to not die in the first place. I prefer character abilities being applicable throughout the entire game. 

I really want Wendy to be reworked, but I don't know what I want from her rework. She's just lackluster when compared to other characters when it comes to fighting anything other than swarm mobs (and even then not all of them - frogs still shred Abi and spider warriors have too much health). She's balanced on the same level as Wilson. She is missing something to bring her on par with others. 

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3 hours ago, SonicDen220 said:

Not a fan of any perks regarding graves or normal ghosts because graves are a one-time thing for getting resources...

Graves have to be reworked, I mean I think it's terrible that once they are dug, they are nonrenewable, unmovable obstacles. I think that is the worst piece of design you can have in a game like Don't Starve- once dug up on early days, still remains there un-intractable in a yer, two years or even ten years. They should either be deconstractable, by hammer, deconstaff or both, which is the easy option, or they should be reworked, which I'd prefer.

And who else is also getting a rework? Wendy! She's also extremely fitting to the role of grave interactions with her theme of death and mourning. I like it the most when new or reworked characters bring changes to the game mechanics alongside them, like Warly bringing a farm and crock pot update while Wurt bringing changes to Merms. It's also painfully obvious that Klei doesn't want to make simple stat adjustments to characters they rework, they like adding flashy new stuff, like New Buildings, Giant Teddy protector, Kitchen Appliances, New Transformations... Thus, I'd like a ceremony of sorts she can perform, both to ease her mind and make graves functional again. It may involve flowers and bone shards. Perhaps she can call the ghosts she helped send to netherworld to her aid. I think there is a lot of untapped creative potential there waiting to be harvested by the upcoming Wendy rework

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10 hours ago, AngryMan said:

A thought some people had was that she should also be able to more easily revive people. She might take less damage for effigies and telltale hearts (30 or 20 not 40). She should also lose less or NO (preferably) sanity from ghost players (HER SISTER IS ONE).

I do really like the idea of expanding more on revival capabilities for Wendy, as the game stands nobody has a unique perk related to death or revival. This would definitely add on to her arsenal of being a supporting character.

-I would even go as far as maybe including a special perk that allows her to quicken the revival time of Abigail's Flower if you kill any live creatures in your inventory, but of course a limit of at least a day would be required for Abigail for fully reform.

-Expanding on the idea of live creatures: maybe each category of them should give Abigail a unique limited ability. eg/[Birds/Rabbits->Faster Movement Speed],[Moles->allows Abigail's glow to work like an actual light with an increase in range/Increased Health],[Fishes->more slippery/better at avoiding enemies](Community can help expand on this)

-I do think that Abigail should still not be able to be controlled by the players

-the slightly less sanity loss for ghost players should really be a thing by now to be honest, so hope it does in the rework :p

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I had quite a few ideas for Wendy, Being able to command Abigail to follow another less skilled player than you would be great for Co-op gameplay.

Also having Abigail be smart enough to NOT suicide into Swamp Tentacles would be quite lovely.

Not tagging along miles behind you off screen instead of attacking whatever happens to be trying to kill you that your running for your life from.

I would also like to be able to feed Abigail something.. to heal her after she has taken a lot of damage.

I also want to be able to pump Abigail full of Glowbulbs/Glowberries to make her light up brighter like a Lantern I can use through the night.

Wendy should be able to place flowers on grave stones to “Mourn the dead” she comes across which will give her a small sanity boost increase. 

Maybe she can “Calm” an Angry spirit, that another player has disturbed after digging up their grave by placing a garland wreath over the headstone?

Ghosts should be non-hostile towards Wendy as long as Abigail is summoned and already following her.

 

 

Thats it, I don’t want an overly extreme rework.. I just want Wendy to fit the role of Spooky little girl who enjoys the company of her ghostly sister and isn’t afraid of ghosts.

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Wendy has two components to her identity: ghosts, and cheap mobile AoE. Ghosts are what tie her lore/flavor to the Lydia Deetz-esque goth girl archetype and all that accompanies it (fascination with death, general morbidity, dry deadpan wit, suicidal ideation). Cheap mobile AoE is what distinguishes her in-game playstyle from every other Survivor's. Post-rework Winona has strong AoE with her catapults, but it is neither mobile nor cheap. Post-rework Woodie has some relatively cheap mobile AoE with his Moose form's Charge attack, but it can't be sustained indefinitely and is slightly more resource intensive (3 monster meat, 2 grass, 20hp, 24 sanity, and all of Woodie's current Hunger to become a moose for 4 minutes, vs. 50 sanity to summon and keep Abigail for an indefinitely long period of time).

I am fond of the suggestions from AngryMan, SinancoTheBest, and Mike23Ua for grave and player-ghost interactions, as this would sharpen Wendy's "ghost" identity component without adding too much generic strength to her kit. I would be very cautious about a broad overhaul of Abigail's abilities though. Abigail is a very well-balanced pet already IMHO. Flower cycling allows you to keep her around indefinitely, except during raid boss fights, which are one of Wendy's intended gameplay weaknesses. If it were possible for Wendy to keep Abigail alive and dealing consistent damage throughout the entirety of a raid boss fight, then her DPS would be similar to Wigfrid's, but without the penalty of obligate carnivory. This would not be a desirable outcome if the goal is to have a character whose strengths and weaknesses feel unique.

The only raid boss fights that Wendy should arguably do well in, are fights in which swarms of individually-weak minions/adds are the most important component of the boss' gimmick (e.g. Bee Queen, Fuelweaver). I would definitely like to see Abigail prioritize Woven Shadows (and possibly Unseen Hands) consistently in the Fuelweaver fight, which she currently fails to do, making her worse than useless for FW's second phase since she often pins him down in one spot when you're trying to lure him away from his Woven Shadows. A small buff to her damage radius in order to keep her alive longer vs. Grumble Bees could also be nice; she doesn't currently stunlock them as reliably as she stunlocks spiders and normal bees, and I believe this is due to a combination of their attack radius being a fair bit larger than Abby's and having superior hit recovery. (Players have no difficulty stunlocking individual Grumble Bees with their basic attacks, though)

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On 10/12/2019 at 2:07 AM, Mike23Ua said:

I had quite a few ideas for Wendy, Being able to command Abigail to follow another less skilled player than you would be great for Co-op gameplay.

Also having Abigail be smart enough to NOT suicide into Swamp Tentacles would be quite lovely.

Not tagging along miles behind you off screen instead of attacking whatever happens to be trying to kill you that your running for your life from.

I would also like to be able to feed Abigail something.. to heal her after she has taken a lot of damage.

I also want to be able to pump Abigail full of Glowbulbs/Glowberries to make her light up brighter like a Lantern I can use through the night.

Wendy should be able to place flowers on grave stones to “Mourn the dead” she comes across which will give her a small sanity boost increase. 

Maybe she can “Calm” an Angry spirit, that another player has disturbed after digging up their grave by placing a garland wreath over the headstone?

Ghosts should be non-hostile towards Wendy as long as Abigail is summoned and already following her.

 

 

Thats it, I don’t want an overly extreme rework.. I just want Wendy to fit the role of Spooky little girl who enjoys the company of her ghostly sister and isn’t afraid of ghosts.

you can heal her with potions. Also, i dont see why she needs a rework but ok

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2 minutes ago, thetricker1 said:

you can heal her with potions. Also, i dont see why she needs a rework but ok

Imo it's extremely inefficient to heal Abigail with salves/poultices. She regenerates from 1 to full HP over the course of 10 minutes without you needing to spend any resources at all. Also, since she has no damage reduction from armor or other sources, you'd always have to heal her the full amount of damage that she tanked, which could get to absurd values really fast (2 honey poultices needed to heal 3 hound bites, 5 honey poultices needed to heal a single Deerclops smash). In most situations that involve any real danger, the enemy mobs will be damaging Abigail a lot faster than you can heal her with items, since there's a hard minimum time on the heal animation.

Flower cycling is very cheap by comparison. You don't have to heal Abby, just summon her back immediately after she poofs and she'll be topped off to her maximum 600 hp with no healing items required, just 50 of your sanity.

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7 minutes ago, Swanky Psammead said:

Imo it's extremely inefficient to heal Abigail with salves/poultices. She regenerates from 1 to full HP over the course of 10 minutes without you needing to spend any resources at all. Also, since she has no damage reduction from armor or other sources, you'd always have to heal her the full amount of damage that she tanked, which could get to absurd values really fast (2 honey poultices needed to heal 3 hound bites, 5 honey poultices needed to heal a single Deerclops smash). In most situations that involve any real danger, the enemy mobs will be damaging Abigail a lot faster than you can heal her with items, since there's a hard minimum time on the heal animation.

Flower cycling is very cheap by comparison. You don't have to heal Abby, just summon her back immediately after she poofs and she'll be topped off to her maximum 600 hp with no healing items required, just 50 of your sanity.

i know its worthless but the other user is talking about feeding a ghost 

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3 hours ago, Swanky Psammead said:

Imo it's extremely inefficient to heal Abigail with salves/poultices. She regenerates from 1 to full HP over the course of 10 minutes without you needing to spend any resources at all. Also, since she has no damage reduction from armor or other sources, you'd always have to heal her the full amount of damage that she tanked, which could get to absurd values really fast (2 honey poultices needed to heal 3 hound bites, 5 honey poultices needed to heal a single Deerclops smash). In most situations that involve any real danger, the enemy mobs will be damaging Abigail a lot faster than you can heal her with items, since there's a hard minimum time on the heal animation.

Flower cycling is very cheap by comparison. You don't have to heal Abby, just summon her back immediately after she poofs and she'll be topped off to her maximum 600 hp with no healing items required, just 50 of your sanity.

Let me rephrase that then “Feed her Something new and Unique to playing as Wendy to heal her..” 

I don’t know.. like maybe a new item only Wendy can craft? Like I don’t Know Maybe Ectoplasmic Goo..

The entire point of refreshing all of the games cast (and yes the entire cast should be receiving this treatment outside of the few who have already been reworked..) is to make them feel New, and totally Unique with some cool new Gameplay features.

You can’t just wine that Abigail is OP therefore Wendy needs no Reworks.. because THAT is not the point of the Reworks.

Probably the only Characters more in need of a Rework than Wendy At this Moment are Wilson & Wes..

But that topic is for another thread.

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14 hours ago, Mike23Ua said:

Let me rephrase that then “Feed her Something new and Unique to playing as Wendy to heal her..” 

I don’t know.. like maybe a new item only Wendy can craft? Like I don’t Know Maybe Ectoplasmic Goo..

The entire point of refreshing all of the games cast (and yes the entire cast should be receiving this treatment outside of the few who have already been reworked..) is to make them feel New, and totally Unique with some cool new Gameplay features.

You can’t just wine that Abigail is OP therefore Wendy needs no Reworks.. because THAT is not the point of the Reworks.

Probably the only Characters more in need of a Rework than Wendy At this Moment are Wilson & Wes..

But that topic is for another thread.

I don't think @Swanky Psammead is whining about Abby is OP, just stating the fact that it's a waste of time trying to heal her with salves/poultices. In fact, he even mentioned that she will take the full damage from an attack due to no armour, which I believe means that she isn't OP.

And imo the point of a rework is not, in fact, to add features to a character to make them seem new and unique (they usually are unique already), but to enhance their role in the character roster. To better narrow down their downsides and upsides. For Willow, her features show her as a crazy pyromaniac which fits well with her lore. For Woodie it's his lycanthrophy, the controlling and utilising of it. See, these reworks target the main ideas and roles each character is based on. I suspect then, the Wendy rework will focus on Abigail and Wendy's depression more as Wendy is known as the depressed AoE character.

So, Wilson and Wes's rework will be based on their ideas of a balanced character and a challenge character. I've seen some of the ideas which the community has come up with for Wes and well... almost all of them gives him benefits and takes away his role as a potato. Almost. There are some I liked such as making him buff other characters except Weses to maintain his role as a potato yet makes him be useful to the team. But Wes is most known as a challenge character and I hope the Devs will keep him that way. As for Wilson, I sincerely do not know. He is essentially the blank slate of the character roster and due to this he can be shaped in anyway. I do hope that Klei will keep his role as the most "normal" character though.

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I would say that Wendy's weak point and "advantages" limits a lot of what you can do with her.

Reduced damage is arguably the most annoying thing in the game, The number of time and resources that Wendy wastes compared to other characters is notorious and i already made the math in an older post.

You have the problem that you might end buffing Abigail too much with Wendy barelly having to do anything during fights or a very dissapointing rework (Also it could end being very similar to Bernie).

Maybe they should go in a different route with her, maybe use the "she weak" thing of her and give her the abillitty to sneak and avoid being detected by mobs (+ sneak attack which would kill or badly damage some types of mobs like pigs or something) or make darts let's **** and turn her in a more ranged weapon-character with Abigail only having the job of distracting mobs , Someone weak would go more in the metal gear/ranged type of combat.

I have no idea about what you could do with her, i do think that they adding unique mechanics to characters might be good since i like the idea of mighty Wolfgang being able to easilly move heavy stuff and relocating crafted structures or the RPG-esque upgrade system for WX which i have read in the forums.

Things like this would make the game a lot more interesting, You don't change your way of playing too much when you use Winona tbh.

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On 1/2/2020 at 1:19 AM, Mr. Despair said:

The number of time and resources that Wendy wastes compared to other characters is notorious and i already made the math in an older post.

Well, I haven't seen your older post, but the math is pretty straightforward. Wendy has a 0.75x damage modifier. The reciprocal of 0.75 is ~1.33. Wendy therefore takes ~1.33 times longer to kill things using direct weapon-inflicted damage. If there is some risk of Wendy taking damage in a fight, she will need 1.33 times as much armor and healing to recover from it as characters with normal damage modifiers, since she has 1.33 times as many opportunities to get hit (whether she takes hits deliberately while tanking, or accidentally while kiting). If she is using weapons with finite durability, she will need to bring 1.33 times as many of them.

I agree the number is "notorious", but I don't think it deserves to be. Hambats usually make weapon durability a non-issue. Kiting makes armor and healing a small issue. Time spent in combat with raid bosses is a very small proportion of total DST playthrough time, so applying a 1.33x multiplier to it is also a small issue. Since Wendy generally comes out ahead of other characters in terms of time/resources spent in fights against trash mobs (since Abigail actually lives long enough to deal meaningful damage in those), I'd call it a pretty even tradeoff.

Finding ways to deal with low damage is actually one of the more engaging challenges in the game for me, and I hope that aspect of Wendy (and Wes, in his eventual rework) is retained. It motivated me to experiment with obscure mechanics that I'd never have felt the need to try otherwise. I like how the Thulecite Club becomes more appealing the lower your damage modifier gets because of how the "shadow tentacle crit" effect always does 13.6 average bonus damage per swing, unaffected by Wigfrid's strength or Wolfgang's Mightiness; same with the Ornery Beefalo.

(it's also worth noting that every raid boss' loot can be farmed through automated or semi-automated means in the lategame, making damage modifiers somewhat irrelevant at that point if you're not just fighting bosses for fun)

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On 02/01/2020 at 3:19 PM, Mr. Despair said:

You don't change your way of playing too much when you use Winona tbh.

OBJECTION!

lol okay. No. After her rework Winona's playstyle focuses more on hunger and materials now instead of the usual surviving. If you play bottomless stomach survivors (Wolf, Warly, Wes, etc) you easily get used to it but if you play someone who doesn't go hungry as often (like a Wilson for example) you realise how your playstyle changes to accomodate her hunger.

Idk about you but when I played Winona I think about food more than when I played anyone else. Usually I place the importance of food on number 4-5 but when I play Winona food instantly became the second most important thing to gather. Like, she can actually starve.

If you play her the same as a normal character then you will definitely start living off seeds. Your eyes need to be trained on the hunger meter everytime you craft or even just walk around. Not to mention, you have to plan the amount of items you need crafted before you go anywhere to save the hunger you'll lose and minimise hunger loss.

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2 minutes ago, Booklover said:

If you play bottomless stomach survivors (Wolf, Warly, Wes, etc) you easily get used to it but if you play someone who doesn't go hungry as often (like a Wilson for example) you realise how your playstyle changes to accomodate her hunger.

Yes, Winona's effective hunger drain can be as small as 75/day or as high as 115/day depending on how poorly or how well the player manages her crafting sessions.

[115/day, for context, is actually higher than Warly's drain (90/day), Wes' drain (93.75/day), and Normalgang's drain (112.5/day). Only Mightygang's is higher (and Wortox's, kinda; Wortox effectively loses 150/day since he only gains half value from normal food, but he can supplement this with souls).]

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Yes yes yes, but Abi still needs the rework.

Let's say alright that Wendy is meant to be a relatively weak Character that does very well against annoying bunches of mobs, like hounds, bats, frogs, pengulls and spiders. This is already not nothing. So the trade-off is that she's good against small mobs but not so against bosses. Ok, but this gameplay choice makes her a very poor alternative in late-game. Reality is that the trade-off is not OK considering the resources spent, the HP lost and the time spent when fighting bosses. This is why Wendy is one of the few characters that really benefits living the tamed boof life. Which is cool IMO, but after a while, it feels a bit cheesy to kill everything on top of the Ornery boof with the only resource being spend here is blue mushrooms. 

And let's be honest, Abi AI and mechanic is so dumb simple, I have trouble reconciling the fact that she's the twin of a survivor, I don't see it. There is no interaction between the two. All dev's energy should be put into reworking Abi's AI (and the fun graveyard thingy discussed above). So a couple more interactions with Wendy (not involving combat) would do the trick, no specific idea here, it's not the focus of this post. I'd like to resolve the late game problem Wendy haves and the fact that Abi is useless during boss fights. I mean, yeah the best you can do atm is to carry 6 Abi flowers, but common, let's be real, what is this mechanic? It's weird and not fun. There is still a niche for Abi during boss fights without just boosting the general DPS output of Wendy. With better AI and mechanics, we should be able to use Abi strategically. 

Some ideas

Direct control: Idk how but making so we can control the Kiting of Abi during the fight or at least pull her out if needed. As for now there is not much we can do when she is in trouble unless running very far (often too late). @EsaiXD had a thread where he explains how you could control of Abbi with the mouse right-click.

Spoiler

 

I like the ideas of OP @AngryMan. Crafting idols like Woodie to change Abi's stance is a good idea. I'd add that Abi should not boost the general dmg output of Wendy for boss fights. One of those useful stances could be a tank: big defense and a drastic dmg reduction. For the idol crafting, Wendy could use trinkets! This mixed with a new potential gravedigger mechanic could be a great way to give use to trinkets. Some trinkets used for this stance, others for that stance. Every new moon, Wendy could bring nightmare fuels to digged graves so they get restored. Ghost are friendly during the full moon. 

Of all I ideas I saw for Wendy's rework. These two paths are IMO, the ones that need thoughts put into it. However, in both cases, the general AI of Abigail needs to step up one way or another.

One final thought, a probably bad one. It might seem inconsistent with what I said I wanted from the rework (cus it is). During Wendy's search for bringing her sister back to life. With the help of her Uncle and may be Wicker, she creates a new Staff item (it uses the atm useless super opal gem from the moon caller and a yellow gem). And this staff, wait for it... Revives players directly from their skeletons! So the player "teleport" to his body the same way you appear in the meat effigy. Tragically for Wendy, because Abi did not die in the Constant, she cannot be revived that way :'( 

And with this new update that includes the new Uprising staff. I would add skeletons to fallen tamed beefalo. SO YOU COULD NOW REVIVE YOUR BELOVED BEAST! (no fkin rollback lol) This would solve good part of the problem with taming, although this would be available only in very late gameplay. but that's the point, with this, Wendy is now interesting for late gameplay.

K enough. Feel free to criticize and debunk what is said here. That's how the good stuff rises to the top.

 

 

 

 

 

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On 4/1/2020 at 6:36 AM, Swanky Psammead said:

Finding ways to deal with low damage is actually one of the more engaging challenges in the game for me, and I hope that aspect of Wendy (and Wes, in his eventual rework) is retained. It motivated me to experiment with obscure mechanics that I'd never have felt the need to try otherwise. I like how the Thulecite Club becomes more appealing the lower your damage modifier gets because of how the "shadow tentacle crit" effect always does 13.6 average bonus damage per swing, unaffected by Wigfrid's strength or Wolfgang's Mightiness; same with the Ornery Beefalo.

(it's also worth noting that every raid boss' loot can be farmed through automated or semi-automated means in the lategame, making damage modifiers somewhat irrelevant at that point if you're not just fighting bosses for fun)

But in these cases there is no difference with playing Wendy or other character.

The Thulecite Club works in the same way with all characters, is even more effective with the other characters and there is not a single reason for others characters to not use it.

Automated means to fight bosses can and will be used with all characters, Playing as Wendy will just mean that getting to the automatized end goal will take longer.

So, unless you domesticate a beefalo early, How will this playstyle be unique and different to the other characters?

 

On 4/1/2020 at 7:50 AM, Booklover said:

OBJECTION!

I don't consider "I have to eat like the rest of characters but more often" to be a very unique gameplay style.

Wolfgang has the same problem but with Wolfgang an early ruins rush is possible, boss rushing and killing enemies faster (Even killing some with a single hit) makes combat more enjoyable that with the rest of the cast.

Wortox, Webber and Wormwood are the ones that have drawbacks which will change your style of playing compared to the rest.

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10 hours ago, Mr. Despair said:

I don't consider "I have to eat like the rest of characters but more often" to be a very unique gameplay style.

That's just one of many examples how differently Winona plays. Another one is how you tend to see how you would shape a farm with catapults and building alongside planning instead of using enemy mobs against each other. Small things that nudge your thinking and actions to another smaller path that you might not realise if you play similarly.

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