Please do not nerf Wolfgang

[Moonatik]

1 minute ago, Casm said:

^ this. When playing solo, you can use a mod that brings the health of mobs/bosses down to regular Don't Starve levels. There's no shame in playing the game the way you want, just as long as you're having fun!

This... Not. Mods should not be the solution for any kind of "issues". Then if a mod become really smart, the devs should add it as an official feature. 

[GetRektKids]

Oh boyy..... I saw the HOT! symbol on "Wolfgang needs to NOT be nerfed" and I got scared D:

[ArubaroBeefalo]

10 minutes ago, Moonatik said:

This... Not. Mods should not be the solution for any kind of "issues". Then if a mod become really smart, the devs should add it as an official feature. 

they didnt make any boss impossible as wes so i dont think they have to waste time on it when they already waste time balancing bosses

 

[Moonatik]

1 minute ago, ArubaroBeefalo said:

they didnt make any boss impossible as wes so i dont think they have to waste time on it when they already waste time balancing bosses

 

I didn't mean I wanted this mod being real. Was more a general thought. I would not want the devs spending time on changing bosses hp.

[GenomeSquirrel]

26 minutes ago, Moonatik said:

The thing is: No matter who you choose, Wolfgang or Wilson, we'll fight the deerclop or the bearger with the same strat, hit and kite. Wilson will hit more times, but the skill asked for that is the same. Catapults is even another "problem". But all the movements I'll do with Wilson, I'll do the same with Wolf. Shorter, but shorter doesn't have to be seen as a cheese. Or the non cheese could be fighting with fist only.

You’re omitting that Wolfgang is also safer because the speed.

[Scrimbles]

The game is meant to be difficult, making the game take no effort with an overpowered character takes away from that.

 

Go download one of  the many "Moves 5x as fast does 10x damage and has 5000 health" characters if you don't want to be challenged.

 

And before anyone says it, no, I don't think Wicker is exempt from nerfs, I want Applied Horticulture to be nerfed into the ground.

[Axe_]

To be quite honest, he's overpowered, and quite boring IMO. He's basically just eat a bunch of food to go fast and do better in fights. It's more of the boring part that makes me not really enthused about playing him. What role is he supposed to fill anyways? Is it fighter? Why is he so good at exploration then?

Idk, maybe klei doesn't need to be the ones to do it, but I personally see the need for a rework of character design. Because the current strong, but scared one isn't apparent at all in gameplay.

Again, this is just my opinion.

[Moonatik]

1 minute ago, GenomeSquirrel said:

You’re omitting that Wolfgang is also safer because the speed.

That doesn't change the movements we'll do. Wilson will hit 2 or 3 times, Wolfgang 3 or 4. But walking cane solve that anyway, or magiluminescence and thulecite club. We're not talking about a cheesy difference.

[Toroic]

I’m a Wolfgang main from before Strange New Powers and I fully support Wolfgang getting nerfed.

In fact, I wrote a mod that reduces mighty max hp to 200, takes away the speed boost completely, and added some additional utility like ignoring marble/piggyback slowdown while mighty, and making him much faster at carrying heavy objects (again, only while mighty) and reducing his sanity to 150 and 1.3x loss from 200 and 1.1x loss.

To me, that’s a good way to bring him more in line with Wigfrid.  He has less effective health than her but keeps his damage at the cost of higher food and sanity management.  Her helmets are fantastic team support, and Wolfgang being able to use some less popular options (marble armor + piggyback) and carrying heavy objects at 75% speed while mighty (most characters move at 25%) is a much less OP and flavorful way to implement his strongman theme.

A nerf to his absurd stats allows him to have more utility and flavor.

Currently almost everyone agrees that Wolfgang is OP, but very few people play him compared to Wx or Wickerbottom or Wilson.  Some people in this thread don’t play him *because* he’s OP, but I think a lot of people don’t play Wolfgang because his current form is not very interesting or interactive.  You produce more food in exchange for a speed boost and double stats.  Compare that with the reworks and new characters and you see what I mean.

[Moonatik]

4 minutes ago, Toros said:

I’m a Wolfgang main from before Strange New Powers and I fully support Wolfgang getting nerfed.

In fact, I wrote a mod that reduces mighty max hp to 200, takes away the speed boost completely, and added some additional utility like ignoring marble/piggyback slowdown while mighty, and making him much faster at carrying heavy objects (again, only while mighty) 

That's smart things I was talking above when we speak about using mods to fix "issues". Especially about marble armor and piggy bag, good ways to show his strengh. That should be in game for real. 

[Dr. Safety]

I don't mind having Wolfgang be a hulking rampaging beefcake that can shred through enemies and bosses when he has to, but Wolfgang absolutely needs a nerf. As far as upsides go, I think they should expand on them and just make Wolfgang absolutely ridiculous in mighty form. The payoff however is he NEEDS downsides that compliment his character.

Take Maxwell for example. His downside is the extremely small amount of max HP he has. This downside matches his playstyle though. Fundamentally, Maxwell's health encourages players to avoid being in the thick of a fight, which perfectly compliments his ability to excel at resource gathering. While someone else is hunting, he is gathering. If he does have to fight, he has the ability to summon things to fight for him (like I said, "fundamentally". Whether it works well when put into practice is besides the point). You obviously will have a harder time fighting mobs head to head than if you were playing as Wilson.

Now look at someone like Warly. His downsides is that he needs a constant supply of a different variety of foods. This compliments his upside of being able to cook amazing dishes and spices that require different ingredients. You obviously will have a harder time not starving if you are able to rely on meatballs all the time like a Wilson.

Which leads us to Wolfgang... His downsides are that he loses sanity quicker than other characters from environment and mobs. This in no way compliments his upside of being an amazing fighter. When you get low sanity, you have to fight which as we established, he is kind of amazing at. There is no uncomfortable situation for a Wolfgang player like there is for a Maxwell (having to tank damage) or a Warly (not having a variety of food farms). I think making Wolfgang have some stat reductions (speed, damage, hunger drain, etc.) at low sanity is the best way to nerf him. This compliments his upside of shredding through enemies quickly, because he has to in order to minimize the amount of sanity lost in a battle.

I apologize for sounding like "woe is me, I main Maxwell and Warly" but they are just the characters I understand the most so it was easy for me to use them as an example.

[Bird Up]

not watching the video, but you're right he shouldn't be nerfed. I'd like him to be more fun to play though.

[Sweaper]

1 hour ago, Moonatik said:

1 hour ago, GenomeSquirrel said:

You’re omitting that Wolfgang is also safer because the speed.

That doesn't change the movements we'll do. Wilson will hit 2 or 3 times, Wolfgang 3 or 4. But walking cane solve that anyway, or magiluminescence and thulecite club. We're not talking about a cheesy difference.

That moment when you have to sacrifice a season length rushing ruins or play the RNG game with tusk to get movement speed while someone just eats. Not to mention that someone is better at ruins rushing too.

Even if he doesn't change the movement you do, you get a lot more window to safely kite, it's comparable to getting more iframes in other games. Get enough of that and it will be extremely hard to die to any enemy. Put those items on anyone and any fight becomes a lot easier, put it on Wolf or WX and watch the enemy struggle to touch you.

Edit: Oh, and movement in DST is pretty limited anyways so yeah press the walk keys + attack key. For sure the overall movement won't change, the thing that changes with speed is how fast you get to safety.

[Casm]

1 hour ago, Moonatik said:

This... Not. Mods should not be the solution for any kind of "issues". Then if a mod become really smart, the devs should add it as an official feature. 

The game is called Don't Starve Together. It's intended to be played multiplayer, so it's only an "issue" if you're playing solo. Having mods fix otherwise non-existent issues because someone decided they enjoy the single player experience is perfectly acceptable.

I don't know why this is such a big deal though. I mean, you're entitled to your opinion and I respect that, but if people want to use mods to address what they perceive to be issues with the game, then why is that a bad thing? I mean, it's all subject to personal perspective. What one person views as an issue or a problem may not be viewed the same by someone else, so suggesting that a mod that 'fixes a problem' should be an official feature is not exactly a solution since not everyone will agree that any particular issue was actually a problem to begin with. But for those that do find certain aspects of the game to be problematic, it's best to allow them to play the game they want via mods so they can have fun and enjoy themselves, rather than forcing those changes on everyone which would undoubtedly make some people unhappy.

The point is to have fun! Let's stop trying to tell people how they should be having fun and just let them have fun!

[JosePapp]

Why not just opt for integrating a health adjusting system into the game?

As others have mentioned, mods already exist integrating it, but that would be a pretty nice QoL change for a future update.

[Harrowick]

This might be a little off topic, but for a man who's supposed to be deathly afraid of anything remotely creepy, why does he give off such a permanently furious expression? 

[minespatch]

8 minutes ago, Lumberlocke said:

This might be a little off topic, but for a man who's supposed to be deathly afraid of anything remotely creepy, why does he give off such a permanently furious expression? 

Same with Woodie.

[Moonatik]

36 minutes ago, Casm said:

The game is called Don't Starve Together. It's intended to be played multiplayer, so it's only an "issue" if you're playing solo. Having mods fix otherwise non-existent issues because someone decided they enjoy the single player experience is perfectly acceptable.

I don't know why this is such a big deal though. I mean, you're entitled to your opinion and I respect that, but if people want to use mods to address what they perceive to be issues with the game, then why is that a bad thing? I mean, it's all subject to personal perspective. What one person views as an issue or a problem may not be viewed the same by someone else, so suggesting that a mod that 'fixes a problem' should be an official feature is not exactly a solution since not everyone will agree that any particular issue was actually a problem to begin with. But for those that do find certain aspects of the game to be problematic, it's best to allow them to play the game they want via mods so they can have fun and enjoy themselves, rather than forcing those changes on everyone which would undoubtedly make some people unhappy.

The point is to have fun! Let's stop trying to tell people how they should be having fun and just let them have fun!

I understand. But come on, I'm not telling how people should have fun. If we're talking about the rework of a character, mods are not the subject. What about console players ? We could talk about how some pc players tells the world how blablabla...  But no, it was just a thought, that mods are not the solution for everything. I wasn't agressive by saying that.

Read me just above, someone created his own mod for Wolfgang and I think he had great ideas (how to be against no speed reducing while using marble armor or piggy bag with Wolfgang). That could deserve to be official without hurting anyone.

 

[Yuuko]

4 hours ago, Well-met said:

Why not use a mod to lower boss hp instead?

Consoles can't use mods - and honestly, at a point, its just a bad trend of games overlooking key features because a mod did it.  If the game isn't getting updates, then a mod is your only answer sure - but for a game like DST that is constantly getting updates and involves a lot of structure placement and base decoration why is geometric placement not implemented in the game?  I go to play with my friends on PS4 and its just ANARCHY base building...

 

2 hours ago, GenomeSquirrel said:

 

The counter argument is that the bosses themselves are mostly irrelevant, they’ll ignore you if you ignore them, the drops certainly aren’t enough to make Wes into a Wolfgang or Wolfgang into a super Wolfgang.

Unlike Maxwell who can chop up a bajillion logs, or Wendy who can farm up a bajillion spiders, fighting bosses is a key feature of the game.  Even if the bosses are optional, they are an important aspect of the game.  Its not just Wolfgang's damage, but also his movement speed which is super powerful in this game.  It compounds the problem of his damage to where he doesn't just deal twice as much damage per hit, but ALSO gets in extra hits and still easily dodges due to his movement speed bonus.  The movement speed also gives him the advantage in exploring and traveling, something other characters can never match because of how speed stacks in this game.

He isn't just "easy mode" because most games with an easy mode have some sort of cap at which point you need to remove the training wheels to advance.  Wolfgang, however, scales fully with every perk a player can get meaning he only gets better any time another perk comes out that might help level the playing field.  Such as cooking up volt goat jelly - someone suggested doing that to achieve Wolfgang like damage.. but then you just pick Wolfgang AND volt goat jelly...

Its just a bad play pattern.

 

1 hour ago, Toros said:

I’m a Wolfgang main from before Strange New Powers and I fully support Wolfgang getting nerfed.

In fact, I wrote a mod that reduces mighty max hp to 200, takes away the speed boost completely, and added some additional utility like ignoring marble/piggyback slowdown while mighty, and making him much faster at carrying heavy objects (again, only while mighty) and reducing his sanity to 150 and 1.3x loss from 200 and 1.1x loss.

To me, that’s a good way to bring him more in line with Wigfrid.  He has less effective health than her but keeps his damage at the cost of higher food and sanity management.  Her helmets are fantastic team support, and Wolfgang being able to use some less popular options (marble armor + piggyback) and carrying heavy objects at 75% speed while mighty (most characters move at 25%) is a much less OP and flavorful way to implement his strongman theme.

A nerf to his absurd stats allows him to have more utility and flavor.

Currently almost everyone agrees that Wolfgang is OP, but very few people play him compared to Wx or Wickerbottom or Wilson.  Some people in this thread don’t play him *because* he’s OP, but I think a lot of people don’t play Wolfgang because his current form is not very interesting or interactive.  You produce more food in exchange for a speed boost and double stats.  Compare that with the reworks and new characters and you see what I mean.

This would be a great rework.

[Casm]

42 minutes ago, Moonatik said:

I understand. But come on, I'm not telling how people should have fun. If we're talking about the rework of a character, mods are not the subject. What about console players ? We could talk about how some pc players tells the world how blablabla...  But no, it was just a thought, that mods are not the solution for everything. I wasn't agressive by saying that.

Read me just above, someone created his own mod for Wolfgang and I think he had great ideas (how to be against no speed reducing while using marble armor or piggy bag with Wolfgang). That could deserve to be official without hurting anyone.

 

Sorry about that. My statement on "Let's stop telling people how to have fun and just let them have fun" was intended to be a more blanket/universal statement and wasn't intended to be directed specifically at you. Apologies if it came across that way.

[Moonatik]

3 minutes ago, Casm said:

Sorry about that. My statement on "Let's stop telling people how to have fun and just let them have fun" was intended to be a more blanket/universal statement and wasn't intended to be directed specifically at you. Apologies if it came across that way.

No worries, it's always good to be clear and english is not my first language. So I maybe didnt get your point very well.

Anyway I think we should recreate a topic in order to put all the smart ideas for Wolfgang. Smart ways to make his strengh legit and not being see as a cheese. With effort and work maybe ? And some things that should be relevant just because he's the strongest.

Credits to Mike 23Ua and the training idea. It could be harder than simply eating 2 or 3 honey jam. Maybe funny ?

Credits to Toros and his idea of no speed reduce with marble armor and piggy bag. Faster than others with marble pieces.

There's maybe some other smart ways to deal with his strength, and make it real because we would do specific things for it. OP because he's stronger than anyone else, but not OP just because of food. We would have to keep it.

[Pikapikap]

If you carefully tested the previous character refresh,You will know that klei is making characters more interesting and more team-oriented,No character has been nerf so far,And klei is very willing to listen to the constructive suggestion of the community.And it will be modified according to the actual situation.So this is one of the reasons why they are the best game company

[Sinister_Fang]

My issue with Wolfgang is the conflict with his core design more so then his huge damage potental. He's meant to be strong, but he's also afraid of monsters. But because of his 2x damage bonus, he's going to be exposed to insanity auras for less amounts of time. His pros completely counter his cons, making him so that he plays mostly like Wilson, but better. I think his fear of monsters and the night need to have a more significant impact on his gameplay.

[Confused Rock]

Wolfgang is overpowered if all you think about is killing bosses, but don't starve has so much more to it than killing bosses! Combat is just another facet of gameplay the same as farming or gathering is. Maxwell can do so much work with his shadow gangsters and save more resources that would've been spent on tools doing it, same as wolfgang needs less melee weapons and can kill things faster. Wolfgang doesn't kill things that much better, though. When boss fights still last several minutes, for the most part only his 25% movement speed bonus matters. He can kill grumble bees and lavae in melee, but usually you just try to avoid that. Only against small mobs does he really shine, being able to kill regular hounds in two hits. And against small mobs... wendy has the ability to kill a day 100 hound wave starting on day 3 with full health abigail.

Wolfgang is just better at one facet of gameplay, just as any other character is. who cares if it means a worse player can have an easier time against a boss? They could have a much easier time if they weren't alone as well, things are hard enough for them already. And it's the point of a character for one facet of gameplay to be easier! You might think he's overtuned in that regard, but so many other characters are overtuned in solving their niche problems as well. The biggest surprise with wolfgang is that food is broadly so common that he can afford to have triple the hunger drain.  That's still a bigger downside than the ones that most characters seem to lack. having no weaknesses is far from exclusive to him.

[Toroic]

8 hours ago, Shosuko said:

-Snip-

 

This would be a great rework.

I've enjoyed it a lot and probably have 3-400 hours just with modded Wolfgang.  My wife plays Willow and it felt really cheesy to play pre-rework Willow and vanilla Wolfgang.

As you can probably imagine though, practically no one uses mods that nerf top tier chracters.

7 hours ago, Sinister_Fang said:

My issue with Wolfgang is the conflict with his core design more so then his huge damage potental. He's meant to be strong, but he's also afraid of monsters. But because of his 2x damage bonus, he's going to be exposed to insanity auras for less amounts of time. His pros completely counter his cons, making him so that he plays mostly like Wilson, but better. I think his fear of monsters and the night need to have a more significant impact on his gameplay.

Well, not exactly.  Wolfgang's 1.1x sanity loss modifier applies to all sanity loss, which also includes darkness.  Unfortunately, 1.1x is such a trivial modifier that it doesn't really change anything at all.

I've done some testing and if Wolfgang has a 1.3x modifier he needs a tam to negate the sanity drain from dusk and night, and if he has 1.3x sanity loss and 150 max sanity he runs out of sanity nearly twice as fast fighting Deerclops which has his damage and sanity loss balanced for that fight (assuming he's mighty, otherwise he'll lose more sanity than other characters).

Wilson isn't really the balance point we'd be aiming for with a nerf though as everyone but Wes and maybe Webber are stronger mechanically than Wilson is, and all of the reworks have more impactful perks than Wilson's beard.

In theory Wolfgang is a "win more/lose more" character who is very powerful while fed and the absolute weakest (yes, even worse than wes) while wimpy.  The problem is that the cost is on his hunger (easy to manage even at 3x after you're established and belt of hunger exists) and on his sanity (which is a trivial inconvenience to have permanently at 0 unless you're fighting bosses, and you can fight your way back to sanity as Wolf easily) neither of which make for a good cost to benefit ratio.

Having given this a lot of thought I think there's two main ways to help balance Wolfgang, and you could even combine the two.

1) Reduce his free stats and leave him with high damage (and maybe some flavor perks) as his upside.  This would leave him without any defensive or speed benefits over other characters so it's a more clear efficiency for offense trade.

2) Make Wolfgang worse at things that aren't combat related.  Without a speed boost Wolfgang is arguably worse at exploring, but there's a number of other things that you could do to make it feel more like a trade off.

I'm going to list a lot of ideas with the full understanding that some of them aren't great to demonstrate how many options there are.

-slower crafting animation

-can't learn from blueprints/no sanity from prototyping

-loses sanity if allies or innocents die on screen (something like -50)

-Can't craft tier 2 magic items or can only craft tier 2 science/tier 2 magic items at crafting station

-Insulation less effective while mighty (because clothing no longer fits his giant head/body respectively)

-Crafting requires more materials (opposite of deconstruction staff)

Obviously some are more interesting than others, and you wouldn't use all of them but I really think that toning his upsides mostly down to "great at combat" and adding a more interesting downside than "eat more food/sanity restoring food" is a good way to go.

16 minutes ago, Confused Rock said:

Wolfgang doesn't kill things that much better, though. 
 

This simply isn't true.

Wolfgang can usually get 1-2 hits more before dodging compared to other characters, which is effectively 2-4 hits more per dodge.

If Wolfgang gets just 5 hits when other characters get 4, it means he's doing 9-10 hits worth of damage in the same time period which means the fight will be less than half as long.  Assuming it isn't a fight where you can avoid being hit completely, Wolfgang should take half as much damage if the fight is over twice as quickly.

Wolfgang also has the ability to 1 shot fire/ice hounds and 2 shot hounds which means he can kill them about as fast as they spawn in most cases.