essay Character reworks and the Importance of interesting downsides.

[Theukon-dos]

     A common trend in the Character re-works is that the character's downsides have been largely negated. Winona's Hunger drain is Marginal at best, Woody can just ignore the curse by popping into the caves, and Wendy does extra damage to targets being attacked by abigail, which actually puts her above most characters in damage. However, I feel this really isn't a good direction to be going, and to explain why, first we need to establish why a good downside is important.

     And before you say it, No. It is not (Purely) because of balance. Don't Starve together is a PvE game, which means that, Aslong as a character isn't Steam workshop levels of broken, it is perfectly fine for some characters to be stronger than others. Now that that's out of the way, let's get on with it.

 

Part I: It makes the character more interesting

     The first reason that Character downsides are important is because they help make playing a character more interesting. By twisting your arm and forcing you to play in a way that you may not be accustomed too, a good downside can add variety or challenge too how you play the game, and sometimes can even be just as much of a reason to play the characters as their upsides.

     Let's look at Warly and Wormwood as examples. Warly's re-work is unique in that it actually made his downside worse, as he can no longer eat non-crockpot foods at all. And Frankly, I'm Grateful for it. For a game called don't starve, Starvation is Rarely an issue, as most characters can just waltz around and live off of berries until they find somewhere to base. With Warly though, Starvation becomes an actual threat, requiring you to constantly be seeking new ingredients to make the variety of foods that his diet requires. Even if this aspect fades once you can reliably make Meaty stew and Bacon and eggs, it still makes using food to heal in boss fights much less effective, forcing you to ether get good or rely on another source of healing.

     As for Wormwood's downside, His inability to heal from food means that *every* hit you take matters. You can't just eat a few carrots to shrug off that spider bite, Or carry yourself through a boss fight with Pierogi. By making healing much more resource intensive, it makes every point of HP much more valuable, and thus forces you to play safer and smarter than you might have otherwise.

 

     Both of these characters Are made fun to play by their downsides. If Warly was just a Wilson with more food options, or Wormwood was just a Wilson who gains sanity from plants and has unique craftables, Neither of their characters would be particularly fun or interesting to play with.

 

Part II: It helps characterize the characters

     A large part of why Don't starve is so memorable is because of it's memorable characters. And downsides can help expand or re-inforce the various character traits. Warly's picky eating establishes him as a bit of a snob when it comes to food, Wormwood's no food healing re-enforces that his body is entirely different than a human's, Wurt's Veganism helps flesh out the Merm species and establish that she cares about animals.

     Now in all fairness, Even bad downsides can do this. Pre-rework Wendy's damage reduction helped re-enforce her being a child and that she is Woefully unready to be in the constant. And Wickerbottom's frail stomach and Insomnia establish her as an old woman who's passed her prime. This doesn't mean that all downsides do this though. Wolfgang's in particular de-establishes his character more than anything. He's supposed to be a coward by heart, but his increased sanity drain is, quite frankly, Laughable at a mere 1.1x modifier. Additionally, Because he can kill things so much quicker than other characters, he just ends up loosing less sanity from monsters than anyone else. It really just doesn't work out.

 

Part III: It encourages teamwork

     Don't Starve together is, obviously, a team-based game. And Downsides can help encourage players to work together. Take the big 3 for example. While these characters are strong on their own, The reason that they work so well as a team is because Wickerbottom can cover both of their weaknesses and visa versa. Wolfgang looses food at a faster rate, and Wickerbottom is capable of getting that mass-producing both produce and Meat with her books. Meanwhile, the End is Nigh! Gives consistency to WX-78's Overcharge, while WX can eat the stale and spoiled food without penalty where it would go to waste with just a Wickerbottom. These characters mesh well together because there abilities combined becomes something greater than if they where all just played separately, and thus encourages teamwork.

     A character like Winona though doesn't really mesh well with any characters. Characters that deal less damage might like the catapults more than a character with default damage. But she doesn't gain any benefits from Allies that other characters wouldn't also gain. Now, let's give Winona a theoretical downside of "She doesn't gain sanity from Dapper Clothing". Suddenly, She now Synergizes with any character that can help other characters gain sanity, Such as Wendy (her cistern serving as an effective sanity station), Wormwood (More ingredients to make sanity-restoring food), and Warly (Easier Access to a crock pot for Sanity restoring foods). Even if her perks leave something to be desired, She now gains more benefits from being in a team than she would have if she was on her own.

     Now, something that one might rebuke this philosophy with is "But Theukon, If you make some characters better synergize with other charaters, then people are only going to play those team comps". And you're not entirely wrong. however, I don't think this will be an issue. For starters, Pubs tend to be a bit too disorganized too really worry about team comp. Second, Friends that are playing together are going to fall into 2 camps. Either A. They're going to be noobish/Experienced enough so that They're going to let the others play who they want, or B. They're all going to be try-hards and pick the "Best" characters regardless. Infact, if anything, adding more combo potential would increase the amount of Variety that the second group of players use, as there would be more viable options to play.

 

I think I've done a good job of Explaining why good downsides are important, But as you may have noticed, I specified "Good" downsides for a reason.

 

Part IV: The Bad and the Ugly

     Unfortunately, Not all downsides are created equal. There are many downsides (Particularly ones from early in the game's life), that don't really contribute much, either to challenge, gameplay, or otherwise. Downsides that are only "Have lower X" or "Increased X drain" are pretty bland. they don't do much to effect how you play the character, Food is plentiful enough that Increased hunger drain is barely noticeable, and Insanity isn't threatening enough that higher drain could be seen as a good thing.  And then there's Damage reduction. I hate this downside with a burning passion. It was fine in DS where things where balanced around 1 person fighting them, but then DST came along and multiplied the health of most creatures, but didn't reduce the damage reduction to balance it out. It's particularly bad against raid bosses bosses which can easily have 20k+ HP.

     The downside I want to point out specifically though is Winona's First re-work downside. This downside was particularly bad because it used so much hunger that any time you saved crafting just ended up being dedicated too getting food. Again, food isn't hard, but when you effectively have a 64x hunger drain while crafting, that can make things fairly tedious.

     Now, I won't pretend that Giving every character an interesting downside is an easy feat. However, As a player, I do fully belive that spending the time to make sure these characters have these interesting downsides would make them better all around, both to play and as characters. And thus, increase the life span of the game while increasing enjoyment all around. 

Thank you for coming to my Ted talks.

[Well-met]

If you make every character really powerful, then it solves the problem from the other side. This is what Klei is going for I believe.

[Theukon-dos]

Just now, Well-met said:

If you make every character really powerful, then it solves the problem from the other side. This is what Klei is going for I believe.

Perhaps, but that doesn't make the characters particularly interesting. Wolfgang is quite possibly the strongest character in the game between his damage and speed boosts and his Pathetic downsides, but you rarely see anyone play him because he's just plain boring.

[Viktor234]

I actually wouldn't call Warly's downside that he gets reduced stats from eating the same dish over and over again interesting. The fact that he can only eat dishes is kinda interesting, but the other downside and the fact that he doesn't have any abilities besides his Crock Pot (which can be shared with everyone) turns him into a real Pick-and-Swap Character.

The repeated meal penalty forbids him to make use of foods with lower stats, or to use healing food in bigger battles. Just like Wormwood he needs to rely on Healing Salve or Honey Poultice during fights to stay alive (if you enjoy this penalty on Warly, you'll be better off playing as Wormwood instead). Combining Body and Head Armor doesn't work in DST, unlike in DS. His hunger can be easily managed with Meatballs + Meaty Stew, which is also common in DST due to Suspicious Dirt Piles or a proper Bunnyman farm. Also the facts that he requires more different fillers than the average character kinda disturbs the fact that he needs to carry around his Portable Crock Pot, and that his chef pouch grants -2 slots: You need to fill about half of your inventory with different foods to avoid Warly's penalty with dishes.

Warly is based around dishes, but he does get reduced stats from dishes. Everyone can make use of Warly's dishes, and since the Celestial Portal does exist in DST, you aren't really forced to suffer from his penalties to enjoy his only ability.

[Well-met]

6 minutes ago, Theukon-dos said:

Perhaps, but that doesn't make the characters particularly interesting. Wolfgang is quite possibly the strongest character in the game between his damage and speed boosts and his Pathetic downsides, but you rarely see anyone play him because he's just plain boring.

wolfgang and wicker will likely be the only reworks that involve a seizable tuning down, but Klei will probably give them new strong powers to compensate.

wait what, you rarely see anyone play wolf?

[Theukon-dos]

Just now, Viktor234 said:

I actually wouldn't call Warly's downside that he gets reduced stats from eating the same dish over and over again interesting. The fact that he can only eat dishes is kinda interesting, but the other downside and the fact that he doesn't have any abilities besides his Crock Pot (which can be shared with everyone) turns him into a real Pick-and-Swap Character.

It's more interesting than just eating nothing but meatballs and pierogi the entire game. As for the pick and swap thing, Because his food spoils, you still need to either be swapping to him constantly or killing the bee queen too unlock the bundling wrap.

Just now, Viktor234 said:

The repeated meal penalty forbids him to make use of foods with lower stats, or to use healing food in bigger battles. Just like Wormwood he needs to rely on Healing Salve or Honey Poultice during fights to stay alive (if you enjoy this penalty on Warly, you'll be better off playing as Wormwood instead). Combining Body and Head Armor doesn't work in DST, unlike in DS. His hunger can be easily managed with Meatballs + Meaty Stew, which is also common in DST due to Suspicious Dirt Piles or a proper Bunnyman farm. Also the facts that he requires more different fillers than the average character kinda disturbs the fact that he needs to carry around his Portable Crock Pot, and that his chef pouch grants -2 slots: You need to fill about half of your inventory with different foods to avoid Warly's penalty with dishes.

I do admit that his upside is quite easy to cheese. but I wouldn't say that he can't use lower-quality foods at all. Any bit of hunger still makes it take longer until he needs to eat a previous food again. And as for DS Warly, He actually had an easier time Cheesing his hunger bar due to his increased food gain. He gains 33% more hunger from food, which meant that he could eat 3 meatballs and be good for the next 2 days

Just now, Viktor234 said:

Warly is based around dishes, but he does get reduced stats from dishes. Everyone can make use of Warly's dishes, and since the Celestial Portal does exist in DST, you aren't really forced to suffer from his penalties to enjoy his only ability.

I do agree that Warly could use an upside to encourage playing him directly, but this post was about downsides, so mentioning that didn't make sense.  The way I see it, I find the most fun in playing warly because of his downside, so I thought it was a worthy one to mention here.

[Viktor234]

52 minutes ago, Theukon-dos said:

Perhaps, but that doesn't make the characters particularly interesting. Wolfgang is quite possibly the strongest character in the game between his damage and speed boosts and his Pathetic downsides, but you rarely see anyone play him because he's just plain boring.

Wolfgang is actually not that unpopular, players do still pick Wolfgang mostly because of his "+25% movement speed", because they want to solo rush all the bosses in DST, or just because they want to be a hero and thus pick the strongest character ingame. He's still in the upper half of the most popular characters and I still see players joining and picking Wolfgang.

Also what about Wilson? He could be called the most boring character in DST, because he doesn't have any real upsides or downsides except his beard, but he's still in the top 3 of the most popular characters in DST (The most popular character right now appears to be Wigfrid).

[Theukon-dos]

1 minute ago, Viktor234 said:

Wolfgang is actually not that unpopular, players do still pick Wolfgang mostly because of his "+25% movement speed", because they want to solo rush all the bosses in DST, or just because they want to be a hero and thus pick the strongest character ingame. He's still in the upper half of the most popular characters and I still see players joining and picking Wolfgang.

Also what about Wilson? He could be called the most boring character in DST, because he doesn't have any real upsides or downsides except his beard, but he's still in the top 3 of the most popular characters in DST (The most popular character right now appears to be Wigfrid).

I made that wolfgang statement based on my experience in pubs where I rarely see him. 

 

As for Wilson, I imagine it's because he's the face of DST, and is a nice and simple character for people who just want to play the game.

Also, Where can I see the character statistics? that actually sounds really interesting

[Viktor234]

2 minutes ago, Theukon-dos said:

Also, Where can I see the character statistics? that actually sounds really interesting

I dunno exactly but you might ask @CarlZalph, 3-4 months ago he made a small statistic about the currently picked characters in every vanilla server:

[MondayNight]

1 hour ago, Theukon-dos said:

Let's look at Warly and Wormwood as examples.

 

1 hour ago, Theukon-dos said:

Perhaps, but that doesn't make the characters particularly interesting. Wolfgang is quite possibly the strongest character in the game between his damage and speed boosts and his Pathetic downsides, but you rarely see anyone play him because he's just plain boring.

 

Funny thing you mention the prevalence of characters in servers - btw, when was the last time you checked what characters are played most-to-least in them Survival vanilla pubs? Because from what I've seen in my oh-so-disturbingly-high number of pub hours, Warly and Wormwood are least picked, top-bottom alongside Wes. And are probably the most swap-characters out there aside Winona. "Punishing downsides" makes a very unpopular choice in bulk of player-base and that in turn spells low sales for the respective characters skins.

[Mike23Ua]

I believe that the truly overpowered characters will be brought back down a peg or two.. but other than that, I don’t mind that downsides are vanishing into what seems like obscurity.

There is a HUGE Reason for this though- Because as Klei have stated before they design this game with the FUTURE of the game already in Mind. 

So Just because you or I feel like Wurt or Wendy doesn’t have any serious downsides does NOT mean that the game will always be easy- Hell for all any of US know Klei could be as I type this deep within the finishing touches of a Totally Uncompromising Mode.

They could make the game world itself harder, their could be dedicated difficulty options, Klei’s already acknowledge big idea’s like Elevated Land as something they know a lot of their players would like to see.. how do we know what they are up to?

I would imagine something as game changing as actual difficulty options & Elevated plots of land that all of us would feel like complete noobs all over again unfamiliar with the game.

How do we KNOW that this Whole Return Of Them Update isn’t some grand master plan that once we are tricked into building that celestial alter.. we trigger some event that Terraforms THE ENTIRE CONSTANT  into strange new Lunar Variants Of all enemy types?

Have you SEEN the effects the Moon has on anything in this game??!?! Ghosts roaming freely, pigs becoming Werepigs, Shattered Spiders, Horror Hound, Horror Pengull....

I mean- I’ve seen people like @minespatch Showing off concept art of mobs that so far are NOT in the game, things like the electronic Pawns and more importantly the mob he wants added to the game Baccoon.

As someone who very clearly remembers Scooby Doo on Zombie Island... Baccoon to me do not look like peaceful trading adult variants of Catcoon, they look like they had been transformed by the Moons powers.

For Anyone Who for whatever reason has NOT seen the best Scooby doo film ever created.. spoilers are in the Tag.

Spoiler

The actual real Zombies on the Island (yup for once not some shady villain in a mask) we’re trying to WARN Scooby and the Gang about the seemingly peaceful people who live on the Island who turn into WERECATS and has been luring people to the Island and draining the life out of them. 

 

(Ya know.. now that I think about it, some of my favorite kids cartoons were a bit dark and morbid to be KIDS Cartoons)

Ahem but anyway- How do we Know the effects the LUNAR Power would have on ANYTHING??? 

The TL:DR-

I guess what I’m trying to say here is- 

As long as Klei is continuing to update and provide content to DST, we can all consider it as an unfinished game with plenty of room to develop and continue to grow.

[Theukon-dos]

1 minute ago, x0-VERSUS-1y said:

Funny thing you mention the prevalence of characters in servers - btw, when was the last time you checked what characters are played most-to-least in them Survival vanilla pubs? Because from what I've seen in my oh-so-disturbingly-high number of pub hours, Warly and Wormwood are least picked, top-bottom alongside Wes. And are probably the most swap-characters out there aside Winona. "Punishing downsides" makes a very unpopular choice in bulk of player-base and that in turn spells low sales for the respective characters skins.

Admittedly I have nothing to defend Warly with that statement, But Wormwood is a paid DLC character, so that would help explain his low numbers. Also, Wormwood tends to be little more than a see slave when it comes to pubs. And I'm speaking from experience with that one.

[zVince]

28 minutes ago, Viktor234 said:

Also what about Wilson? He could be called the most boring character in DST, because he doesn't have any real upsides or downsides except his beard, but he's still in the top 3 of the most popular characters in DST (The most popular character right now appears to be Wigfrid).

Wilson's only popular because he's the poster boy for Don't Starve. His gameplay is really tedious in relation to the other characters, he has nothing special that contributes to a group or himself.  Since 2014 I only play with him, but recently I started playing with other characters because it is not feasible to have a Wilson on the team. 

Spoiler

Regarding cosmetics and updates he is the most forgotten character currently

 

[CarlZalph]

1 hour ago, Viktor234 said:

I dunno exactly but you might ask @CarlZalph, 3-4 months ago he made a small statistic about the currently picked characters in every vanilla server:

Stats as of ~3 minute ago:

Ever since Wendy rework, Wigfrid's #1 pickrate worldwide was dethroned.

I'd also like to clarify that the character pick rates is taking into account both modded and vanilla servers.

Out of the total 17163 players, 14572 of them picked vanilla Klei character prefab names.

There were 14445 servers online at the time of poll with 3481 having no mods with 4086 players; 10964 modded with 13077 players.

Excluding the mod flagged servers would shovel off a lot of players (~76% of the player base).

[Mike23Ua]

11 minutes ago, CarlZalph said:

Stats as of ~3 minute ago:

Ever since Wendy rework, Wigfrid's #1 pickrate worldwide was dethroned.

As it should be.  

[Theukon-dos]

1 hour ago, CarlZalph said:

Stats as of ~3 minute ago:

Ever since Wendy rework, Wigfrid's #1 pickrate worldwide was dethroned.

I'd also like to clarify that the character pick rates is taking into account both modded and vanilla servers.

Out of the total 17163 players, 14572 of them picked vanilla Klei character prefab names.

There were 14445 servers online at the time of poll with 3481 having no mods with 4086 players; 10964 modded with 13077 players.

Excluding the mod flagged servers would shovel off a lot of players (~76% of the player base).

 

1 hour ago, Mike23Ua said:

As it should be.  

give it another month or two. We'll see if the natural order returns to normal

[Viktor234]

4 minutes ago, Theukon-dos said:

give it another month or two. We'll see if the natural order returns to normal

Where's the need of playing a character who has a smaller stomach and needs to rely on meat only if you can have an ally following you 24/7 and killing any nearby mob for free? Batilisks, Spiders, Hounds: No problem at all because your follower solos them with ease! Free resources with every new day. Shadow Creatures can be avoided with a Top Hat, Spider Queens will despawn, Treeguards die slowly via Pigman or seasonal bosses, and other bosses can be avoided by just running away.

[Mike23Ua]

54 minutes ago, Viktor234 said:

Where's the need of playing a character who has a smaller stomach and needs to rely on meat only if you can have an ally following you 24/7 and killing any nearby mob for free? Batilisks, Spiders, Hounds: No problem at all because your follower solos them with ease! Free resources with every new day. Shadow Creatures can be avoided with a Top Hat, Spider Queens will despawn, Treeguards die slowly via Pigman or seasonal bosses, and other bosses can be avoided by just running away.

Wendy has ALWAYS been seen as an Easier character choice, I mean.. honestly, what were you expecting?

I love to play Wicker.. free backpacks for everyone, free food, she is really good when paired with a Wormwood, But Wicker hasn’t been Reworked yet.. and I don’t want to play as her too much NOW because I may not like how much they change her LATER.

Especially when I hear a lot of people crying things like “I Hope Wicker gets nerfed into the ground!”

Why?? Because she’s Better than the character you play and that’s why you don’t like her? 

————————————

When I ask for Reworks I want every last single one of them to focus on being fun, unique and interesting to play as while at the same time- Having at least ONE thing going for them that Benefits an Entire Team.

 

Many people who don’t play Wortox much are unaware that when he releases his souls they don’t just heal him and him alone, they heal everyone AROUND Him, Abigails flower damage buff could had easily been strictly a Wendy buff- But no... ANYONE can Benefit from that Buff.

and that’s the direction ALL characters need to go in- Useful, unique or challenging all on their own- But also not a burden to a team, and actual provide benefits to said team.

WEBBER- Webber’s Spider Egg He spawns With isn’t that great of a perk, and it also does nothing at all to benefit people who are not also Webber.

If you place your Spider Nests too close to my base, Be aware I will destroy them no questions asked.

Also if you see me building a Pig house village, don’t come through and hammer all those down just because they punch you around a bit.

Webber is in great need of a Rework to be more team-oriented. Currently his playstyle suits going off and playing alone by Yourself.

Im an EXPERT at Playing Alone by myself, But someone- ANYONE explain to me why Webber can’t “Sleep” inside a Tier 2 or above Spider Den to Downgrade it’s Threat Tier by one level? This would prevent the nests Webber places near non-Webber players from becoming Spider Queens.

While your at it- Explain Why Webber has to make an entire Spider Den Hostile towards him by punching it just to recruit a few Spiders during day light?

 

My point? Every single Character in this game who has yet to be refreshed  was designed from a SINGLE PLAYER gameplay concept. And it’s only the ones who have seen their Reworks that are seeing a large change from that direction. 

Willow can drop Bernie’s to draw shadows away.

Wendy has the damage stat buff from Abigails petal bestowment.

Oh and speaking of Wendy, I wish that People could “ride” on Woodies shoulders in Werebeaver form to slowly cross water as hinted by Wendy’s Quote for him!! 

[h1mk]

On 4/26/2020 at 11:11 AM, Blunderbuss said:

Reworks in general deserve to be a lot more polarizing, gimmicks should pretty much be removed imo, probably a bit late, I know. I don't mean each character needs to fit into the meta or a very specific play-style, they should at least have their own game-play. Warly and Woodie are good examples of this, Warly I like playing, Woodie is a bit lame, (Wilson replacement, I think he's cool too but he doesn't fit my point, not polarizing) obviously Warly is not an extraordinary character in power, but he has a niche and, if you like playing as Warly, you REALLY do like Warly. Downsides should effect day-by-day game-play, (I know this is a very polarizing example but hear me out) what if Woodie was transformed on a nightly basis, with maybe some mechanics or buffs to balance it out, that would be interesting. Woodie would revolved around hunger management and inventory management, otherwise you would sometimes forget you are even Woodie, rather just a person with an axe buff. I can't be the only person who has forgotten Woodie transformed on a full moon in the first place. I am biased because of liking Warly and his hunger-based game-play being what i find fun, but the point is that the gameplay is (in all honesty) boring right now and could use another cycle of challenge to add some good gameplay. I've seen from a few friends that, even new players don't often bother to try all the characters in-game, I see the reason as everyone is a bit too similar.

On 4/26/2020 at 11:48 AM, Blunderbuss said:

And, to give my personal ideas for what some of the characters, should or should've had their stats based on:

  Reveal hidden contents

Willow: Sanity and a use for nightmare fuel. maybe a constant drain as well? Maybe not. I don't think weather resistance or weakness is a good idea really, that's a gimmick I don't care about. New Bernie recipe because it still sucks.

Wilson: Jack of all trades, master of none. That's cool because it's something for everyone, and no one at the same time. Stock!

Wes: I'd like him to be a troll/funny/useless character, but support ideas some people have are pretty cool. If anything, I think some sort of reverse-vampiric things would be GREAT. Like telltale heart, but for living people. So, in that sense, Wes is health centered. (also I think his damage debuff is a big reason for people not to play him personally, hunger annoys people too) Another idea for this is gaining health easily, to fund his sorta, blood donation charity stuff. This could even have a lore reason too, Wes is dead crap alone, kind enough to be a good asset to the team, and, maybe instead of dealing less damage, he could take that damage instead, this would even balance him sharing his health. Maybe he would attach an item to a specific player, when they leave w/ an option to let go of that item, said item determines who gets health.

Wickerbottom: Upsides are cool, downsides are gimmicky and light.

anyway, Idk about wickerbottom, maybe a cane?

She has a starting or craftable cane that can be upgraded to a walking cane or lazy explorer,  movement is restricted without it, maybe this could also be effected by clothing. You'd probably have to see this before knowing if it would work out at all.

Wolfgang: other stuff in this thread

                                                   

As it turns out, I wrote about this sorta thing earlier, here's what i said, because i think it's more relevant to this thread.

And, (like a lot of people I seem to have noticed) I've been playing a lot of Warly recently, which sort of speaks to this, I think the bestexample I came up with here was Woodie, I think downsides should effect your day by day gameplay, not seasonal or not often. Warly can be a switch character, but not as much as Winona because of how inconvenient it can be sometimes. Most people play Warly for fun, though.

Stuff could even contrast, Wigfrid for example, this wouldn't fit the character at all but is just an example of a potentially fun character design. Wigfrid only eats meat, that would be more fun for a character that had a harder time getting meat, for some reason, right?

 

This is the exact reason so many people have asked for a glass cannon character. High damage, very low health. It contrasts in that way.

how about a meter of earned damage? If you have dealed a certain amount of damage quickly, Wigfrid gives a battle cry for having reached the climax of the fight, and thus dealing double damage, or something.

[Zeklo]

Wormwood's downside is certainly interesting but it's undoubtedly a huge crux compared to others'. What tends to happen is you're extremely cautious in the early-game until you can devote into the resource-sink that is his healing alternatives, have a Wortox, or swap off. Which results, in my opinion, less interesting play.

Warly's downside is also interesting, but I personally dislike it since he's a craft-based (or cook based rather) character (I also still hold a grudge he isn't a goat >:c). Which makes him a prominent pick-and-swap option. There's very little reason to actually play the game with him when you can just use the Celestial Portal mid-game to acquire Volt Jelly without the need for his annoying con.

Wurt's vegetarian trait is interesting, but slightly suffers from the buff she gets when eating vegetables. There's no doubt surviving without the... what is it...? 33% increase...?would be incredibly difficult. However, I sometimes find myself on the fence on the exact numbers, since you can basically survive off fist full of jam with little issue.

[Toros]

I agree that interesting downsides are great when it comes to character design, with emphasis on interesting.

Wicker, Wolfgang, Wx’s downsides aren’t interesting because they all generally fall into the “easy to avoid things no character wants to be doing anyway”

Eating spoiled food, sleeping, starving, getting rained on are already things you avoid on everyone (minus wormwood + sleeping) so they don’t actually change gameplay at all.

Wheeler, Wagstaff, Wormwood, Wortox, Wurt, Wigfrid, Maxwell are given interesting, unique perks with downsides that change their gameplay.

That said, there’s a number of different ways to balance a character, and think Woodie is a different paradigm but works just as well.  Each form is useful only in a narrow capacity and if you choose not to use them you basically don’t get any perks worth mentioning.  Players can choose their own risk/reward dynamically.

[Pikapikap]

I like all the characters refresh brought by klei so far.All very interesting,If we want to increase the difficulty, maybe we can expect a worse living environment in the future, a more powerful BOSS, and more difficult monsters to fight back.

It seems to me that someone wants characters refresh = nerf them.It is recommended to change it to the same as the current version of wes. If this is what some people want.And if you do n’t grasp this level well, it will greatly reduce the use of certain characters.

I do n’t think there is anything wrong with character enhancement. It ’s just that we have to increase the difficulty of the living environment and monsters. Maybe this should be considered instead of saying this op all day.

[ArubaroBeefalo]

i like to think that klei is doing all the new characters with more perks because in a future will increase the difficulty

[ButterStuffed]

10 hours ago, x0-VERSUS-1y said:

Funny thing you mention the prevalence of characters in servers - btw, when was the last time you checked what characters are played most-to-least in them Survival vanilla pubs? Because from what I've seen in my oh-so-disturbingly-high number of pub hours, Warly and Wormwood are least picked, top-bottom alongside Wes. And are probably the most swap-characters out there aside Winona. "Punishing downsides" makes a very unpopular choice in bulk of player-base and that in turn spells low sales for the respective characters skins.

Well you have to pay extra or own Hamlet to play Wormwood so it shouldn't be surprising that he has considerably less people playing him.

[Theukon-dos]

8 hours ago, Viktor234 said:

Where's the need of playing a character who has a smaller stomach and needs to rely on meat only if you can have an ally following you 24/7 and killing any nearby mob for free? Batilisks, Spiders, Hounds: No problem at all because your follower solos them with ease! Free resources with every new day. Shadow Creatures can be avoided with a Top Hat, Spider Queens will despawn, Treeguards die slowly via Pigman or seasonal bosses, and other bosses can be avoided by just running away.

I mean, The fact that she was already at the top of the leaderboard despite not being able to eat 50-75% of the food items in the game is a pretty good mark in my favor.

 

I really should have included her in my examples, as she's a perfect example of a character with a unique downside that doesn't go full Scorched earth like Warly or Wormwood.