Wolfgang Rework Brainstorm Thread

[Armorga]

my ideas for wolfgang rework:
-once he gets buff a spirit of a wolf howing appears
-while in his buff form he can lift heavy objects, with a lower decrease of speed, and even throw them as projectiles at very low range
-Wolfgang's mighty meter: a meter exclusive for wolfgang that allows him to stay in the buff form for longer, but it's drained the longer he stays in any buff form, it's increased by doing any exercise such as work, fight or using any of his 3 new craftable items
-wolfgang can craft new items, all used to increase the mighty meter, from 3 different types of weights to cereal bars that also restores health, sanity and hunger
-Wolfgang's mighty form, have you ever imagined something stronger than wolfgang? it could only be wolfgang himself, once his mighty meter reaches 100% he'll get even bigger and buffed, his defense and attack boost are even bigger, his sanity is drained in a slower rate and he also get a small speed boost, but it'll start to very quickly drain the mighty and hunger meter, which will end the mighty form once reaching 0% or closely to 75% respectively wolfgang will also carry heavy objects like if they were nothing, he'll also toss them further making they deal even more damage
-Wolfgang will damage his chest armor over time while in any buffed form, in an even faster rate during the mighty form

[Brutalyte616]

My suggestion for a Wolfgang rework is a Mighty meter. Basically, the more Wolfgang exercises by fighting, mining, running, or carrying heavy objects, the more the meter will fill and keep him Mighty. The meter drains constantly, and it drains faster the lower Wolfgang's hunger is, to the point where it's virtually impossible to keep it filled at low hunger, but this means that Wolfgang can maintain his Mighty form for longer than he can at present, reducing the number of disruptions from his transformations without removing them as a mechanic that you need to be aware of. I would also propose that Wolfgang's sanity loss be tied to his mightiness, so if he's Mighty, he actually has reduced sanity loss that is comparable to the baseline, but if he's Wimpy, the Sanity loss is increased significantly. However, I think Wimpy Wolfgang should get a speed boost to reflect his fearful state, while Mighty Wolfgang only receives a movement bonus when carrying or wearing heavy objects to reflect his strength and balance out the usual penalties, or when he's attacking an enemy to reflect his bravery.

[Justad00d]

3 hours ago, Brutalyte616 said:

My suggestion for a Wolfgang rework is a Mighty meter. Basically, the more Wolfgang exercises by fighting, mining, running, or carrying heavy objects, the more the meter will fill and keep him Mighty. The meter drains constantly, and it drains faster the lower Wolfgang's hunger is, to the point where it's virtually impossible to keep it filled at low hunger, but this means that Wolfgang can maintain his Mighty form for longer than he can at present, reducing the number of disruptions from his transformations without removing them as a mechanic that you need to be aware of. 

I could like that too. A visible meter may help, but I think in the vein of dst style of uncompromising gameplay, I'd be fine with at least a line of dialogue from Wolfgang when he's close to losing his mighty form

3 hours ago, Brutalyte616 said:

I would also propose that Wolfgang's sanity loss be tied to his mightiness, so if he's Mighty, he actually has reduced sanity loss that is comparable to the baseline, but if he's Wimpy, the Sanity loss is increased significantly. However, I think Wimpy Wolfgang should get a speed boost to reflect his fearful state, while Mighty Wolfgang only receives a movement bonus when carrying or wearing heavy objects to reflect his strength and balance out the usual penalties, or when he's attacking an enemy to reflect his bravery.

While I like the idea of Wolfgang having faster movement speed and fast sanity drain while whimpy, I think giving Wolfgang a movement speed BUFF activated by carrying heavy items would be a bit OP. I would rather propose that heavy items just doesn't slow him down or remove hand slot items, and when mighty, he should be able to move the heavy items to only take up the hand slot for when you wanna throw something, and in that stance, he'd walk at normal speed, but if you have a piggyback, you'd slow down a tiny bit in that stance, so if you used a regular back pack, you can walk really far with heavy items and a backpack, or use a cane and have the heavy item on your back. I think he should get the sanity drained reduced to the normal rate when he's doing "physical activities", like carrying heavy stuff, as long as he's in his regular or mighty form, and when he has allies eating or fighting with him. As far as Wolfgang's bravery goes, he's supposed to have "a myriad of phobias", so while I think it would make sense to give him a bit more sanity when mighty, maybe a slightly higher max sanity, i think it should still drain super quick if he's near monsters or low on hunger or health, etc.

[Brutalyte616]

3 hours ago, Justad00d said:

I could like that too. A visible meter may help, but I think in the vein of dst style of uncompromising gameplay, I'd be fine with at least a line of dialogue from Wolfgang when he's close to losing his mighty form

While I like the idea of Wolfgang having faster movement speed and fast sanity drain while whimpy, I think giving Wolfgang a movement speed BUFF activated by carrying heavy items would be a bit OP. I would rather propose that heavy items just doesn't slow him down or remove hand slot items, and when mighty, he should be able to move the heavy items to only take up the hand slot for when you wanna throw something, and in that stance, he'd walk at normal speed, but if you have a piggyback, you'd slow down a tiny bit in that stance, so if you used a regular back pack, you can walk really far with heavy items and a backpack, or use a cane and have the heavy item on your back. I think he should get the sanity drained reduced to the normal rate when he's doing "physical activities", like carrying heavy stuff, as long as he's in his regular or mighty form, and when he has allies eating or fighting with him. As far as Wolfgang's bravery goes, he's supposed to have "a myriad of phobias", so while I think it would make sense to give him a bit more sanity when mighty, maybe a slightly higher max sanity, i think it should still drain super quick if he's near monsters or low on hunger or health, etc.

The Mighty meter is just a suggestion, similar to Woodie's old meter. And it would make sense because the effects of hunger are not immediate on one's physical abilities, although it will still have an effect over time, making it harder to keep buff and strong, so having it be a stat unique to Wolfgang that one can actually track would be a great boon.

 

Now, when I say he gets a movement buff while carrying heavy items, I mean that he receives a buff while carrying the item to compensate for the normal debuff; he's still going to be moving slower than average, but he's not going to be crawling along like other characters. Although I think the hand-slot restriction is still important when carrying heavy objects, I would not mind that changing.

 

As for the sanity drain, my suggestion was that Wolfgang's Mighty form should mitigate his sanity penalty around monsters and darkness, demonstrating the boost of confidence his Mighty form gives him. After all, courage is not the absence of fear, but the willingness to overcome it.

Cue obligatory Jojo reference:

 

[Toros]

2 hours ago, Brutalyte616 said:

The Mighty meter is just a suggestion, similar to Woodie's old meter. And it would make sense because the effects of hunger are not immediate on one's physical abilities, although it will still have an effect over time, making it harder to keep buff and strong, so having it be a stat unique to Wolfgang that one can actually track would be a great boon.

 

Now, when I say he gets a movement buff while carrying heavy items, I mean that he receives a buff while carrying the item to compensate for the normal debuff; he's still going to be moving slower than average, but he's not going to be crawling along like other characters. Although I think the hand-slot restriction is still important when carrying heavy objects, I would not mind that changing.

 

As for the sanity drain, my suggestion was that Wolfgang's Mighty form should mitigate his sanity penalty around monsters and darkness, demonstrating the boost of confidence his Mighty form gives him. After all, courage is not the absence of fear, but the willingness to overcome it.

Cue obligatory Jojo reference:

 

I've thought about having the sanity scaling be higher while wimpy and lower while mighty, but the issue is kind of what we have right now with Wolfgang.

1) It's easy to have plentiful food production to sustain mighty form

2) Wolfgang players are never in wimpy form, because it sucks.

3) If you can sustain Wolfgang's mighty form with passive food production, he ceases to have a downside.

[h1mk]

12 hours ago, The batting bat said:

my ideas for wolfgang rework:
-once he gets buff a spirit of a wolf howing appears
-while in his buff form he can lift heavy objects, with a lower decrease of speed, and even throw them as projectiles at very low range
-Wolfgang's mighty meter: a meter exclusive for wolfgang that allows him to stay in the buff form for longer, but it's drained the longer he stays in any buff form, it's increased by doing any exercise such as work, fight or using any of his 3 new craftable items
-wolfgang can craft new items, all used to increase the mighty meter, from 3 different types of weights to cereal bars that also restores health, sanity and hunger
-Wolfgang's mighty form, have you ever imagined something stronger than wolfgang? it could only be wolfgang himself, once his mighty meter reaches 100% he'll get even bigger and buffed, his defense and attack boost are even bigger, his sanity is drained in a slower rate and he also get a small speed boost, but it'll start to very quickly drain the mighty and hunger meter, which will end the mighty form once reaching 0% or closely to 75% respectively wolfgang will also carry heavy objects like if they were nothing, he'll also toss them further making they deal even more damage
-Wolfgang will damage his chest armor over time while in any buffed form, in an even faster rate during the mighty form

you got me at howling

[Toros]

Ok, so I was testing a way to implement Wolfgang's phobias in a way that I think will be more interesting and add a meaningful downside.

Namely, having Wolfgang induce insanity below some threshold of sanity  (Right now testing at 10%)

You might be wondering what that means, and the primary effect is to raise the number of nightmare creatures that can spawn to attack him from 1-2 to a maximum of 5.  Given that they spawn in very quickly, it is very easy to have a bad situation (say, fighting Deerclops) much worse with 2-3 Terrorbeaks attacking you at the same time.  Given that I have Wolfgang with only 150 sanity, and 1.3x sanity loss, running out vs bosses is very possible and a serious downside.

You could consider this situationally an advantage because it allows faster, but much riskier nightmare fuel farming as you'll go from 10% sanity to 0 sanity instantly and stay there until your sanity gets back above 10%.

This is cool for a couple reasons:

Firstly, it makes letting his sanity get too low much more dangerous fitting with his "win more/lose more" playstyle.

Secondly, if there's an insane Wolfgang who is under 10%, other players can use his crazy to farm shadow monsters with the same speed as if he was wearing a purple amulet.  Note that this won't work for Wolfgang himself, because any shadows he kills will be enough to put him out of the induced insanity threshold (currently, still testing).

[Mysterious box]

So I've been thinking more and more about wolfgangs rework since I've been bored in my house so I thought I'd give my final thoughts unlike my previous thoughts.

I don't think Wolfgang needs a change to his perks but gear them only to combat Wolfgang is a combat character first and foremost so I feel a better way to handle him would be to remove his speed buff outside of combat but have it hang around for about 10 seconds outside of combat with combat being the time between the last time you attacked or your enemy did and I still think his weapons should break faster since I don't feel he should be more efficient with them when he's supposedly swinging them harder.

This in my opinion would leave him in a rather balanced state he'd keep his very high stats and his 2x damage but lose his universal speed boost in favor of a combat only one.

His downsides would be his current poor hunger efficiency, a poor weapon efficiency about 4.5 the normal rate maybe, and fear based increased sanity drain.

I feel like this would bring Wolfgang in line with the other survivors while not hurting his current battle centered gameplay 

[OMGkawaiiAngel]

Hmm.. I got an other idea, not sure if someone has listed it before, since wolfgang is a nyctophobiac, perhaps he should do a bit less damage at dusk and even less at night? a huge sanity drain would be too overpowered now that I think of it..

[meepmoop]

make 20% him more Russian

[Clawder]

I feel like there is a great way to handle Wolfgang in the fear department:

I'd keep his sanity drain low, at 1.2% faster. Since he's scared of monsters and the dark, he might be reluctant to fight spiders and the likes of deerclops, but in the end he does it anyways because he's strong and he knows it. He can fight, and he protects the other survivors. However, what happens when those monsters are ones only you can see, and that can only harm you? Wolfgang is vulnerable in this state, and it should show. Make nightmare creatures spawn in bunches of 1-4 (I feel like 5 is a little too much) BUT make Wolfgang deal 60% damage to nightmare creatures (excluding the shadow pieces and fuelweaver). He might be the strongman, but your nightmares don't care how strong you are; they bask in your fear. Even if you want to use Wolfgang to farm nightmare fuel this way, you HAVE to do it as a team. Wolfgang has protected the team for long enough, it's time for the team to protect him back in his time of need.

[ArubaroBeefalo]

1 minute ago, Clawder said:

I feel like there is a great way to handle Wolfgang in the fear department:

I'd keep his sanity drain low, at 1.2% faster. Since he's scared of monsters and the dark, he might be reluctant to fight spiders and the likes of deerclops, but in the end he does it anyways because he's strong and he knows it. He can fight, and he protects the other survivors. However, what happens when those monsters are ones only you can see, and that can only harm you? Wolfgang is vulnerable in this state, and it should show. Make nightmare creatures spawn in bunches of 1-4 (I feel like 5 is a little too much) BUT make Wolfgang deal 60% damage to nightmare creatures (excluding the shadow pieces and fuelweaver). He might be the strongman, but your nightmares don't care how strong you are; they bask in your fear. Even if you want to use Wolfgang to farm nightmare fuel this way, you HAVE to do it as a team. Wolfgang has protected the team for long enough, it's time for the team to protect him back in his time of need.

dont exclude fw and shadow pieces

[Mike23Ua]

The only problem is these characters have to be able to stand as their own character, because if a character is totally awful without Teamwork- Then they’re still Totally Awful.

Despite this game being called Don’t Starve TOGETHER there is still 100% an option of loading an Offline game and playing Completely ALONE.

So please Klei... I don’t care WHAT You do, as long you don’t FORCE Teamwork on people.

The last time a game developer FORCED content down my throat I ended up HATING said Content

Spoiler

(Cough Cough the Bat-Tank in Batman Arkham Knight.. Rocksteady made AMAZING Batman Games.. up until they put their love for that Car above making a good BATMAN game.. true story: I actually cried tears of Joy when the car was destroyed, only to angrily want to throw my controller across the room when a few minutes later I’m gifted with a replacement.)  

AHEM ANYWAY... If you went with some of these suggestions to make Wolfgang horrible at fighting shadow monsters and needs Teamwork to deal with them- That Idea is only going to make Wolfgang a terrible option to play in Solo Play.

[Clawder]

17 minutes ago, Mike23Ua said:

AHEM ANYWAY... If you went with some of these suggestions to make Wolfgang horrible at fighting shadow monsters and needs Teamwork to deal with them- That Idea is only going to make Wolfgang a terrible option to play in Solo Play.

I disagree. If you pick Wolfgang in solo, you just have to keep your sanity in check. Much like Wes players have to eat constantly and Wormwood needs ways to heal. Wolfgang would only have a minor downside which is completely negated with good management. Also, killing a shadow monster restores enough sanity to get you out of that state, if need be. A damage reduction modifier to a very specific mob will not affect solo play. At all.

[Toros]

1 hour ago, Clawder said:

I feel like there is a great way to handle Wolfgang in the fear department:

I'd keep his sanity drain low, at 1.2% faster. Since he's scared of monsters and the dark, he might be reluctant to fight spiders and the likes of deerclops, but in the end he does it anyways because he's strong and he knows it. He can fight, and he protects the other survivors. However, what happens when those monsters are ones only you can see, and that can only harm you? Wolfgang is vulnerable in this state, and it should show. Make nightmare creatures spawn in bunches of 1-4 (I feel like 5 is a little too much) BUT make Wolfgang deal 60% damage to nightmare creatures (excluding the shadow pieces and fuelweaver). He might be the strongman, but your nightmares don't care how strong you are; they bask in your fear. Even if you want to use Wolfgang to farm nightmare fuel this way, you HAVE to do it as a team. Wolfgang has protected the team for long enough, it's time for the team to protect him back in his time of need.

There’s a couple reasons I’m hesitant to reduce damage Wolfgang deals to shadows, and I’ll go in order from most pressing to least pressing.

1) Wolfgang already deals less damage while wimpy, meaning he could already be doing 60% damage or less in that state and if combined with a 60% reduction vs shadows he could if close to starving deal only 30% normal damage.  With a spear it would take close to 50 hits to kill a terrorbeak which basically isn’t viable.

2) Shadow spawners are what manage how many shadows can spawn, and they do a 50/50 check to decide terrorbeak or crawling horror.  With bad luck even with 4 spawned you will get 4 terrorbeaks 1/16 of the time.  3 terrorbeaks 1/8 of the time.

3) Having his weakness require support from his group would make him easier in group play but very punishing in solo play.  Given how many people play solo, that seems like a mechanic that people aren’t going to find fun.

4) What about nightmare creatures in the ruins?  You have less control over them but it would be strange to not also have a damage penalty.

48 minutes ago, Clawder said:

I disagree. If you pick Wolfgang in solo, you just have to keep your sanity in check. Much like Wes players have to eat constantly and Wormwood needs ways to heal. Wolfgang would only have a minor downside which is completely negated with good management. Also, killing a shadow monster restores enough sanity to get you out of that state, if need be. A damage reduction modifier to a very specific mob will not affect solo play. At all.

Wolfgang as I currently have him has several downsides.  A lot of his power is dependent on being mighty which has heavy food demands, and he needs to manage his sanity much more than other characters as well.

Adding more shadows spawning when at low sanity is thematic and exciting but also reasonable to deal with if you are prepared... and very dangerous if you’re not.

From my testing with a good weapon if you’re mighty and quick you can kill the first shadow before the rest spawn in... but since they all look identical and teleport when hit damaging a specific one can be very challenging and worse at night or on darker turf.

Dealing less damage to shadows would definitely affect solo play.

[Clawder]

2 minutes ago, Toros said:

Dealing less damage to shadows would definitely affect solo play.

While I understand there's a lot of things to be considered (like the shadow creatures in the ruins), I don't think it's fair to "use" Wolfgang as a farm for nightmare fuel. I think it should be a punishment to be insane as Wolfgang, and not exploitable as easy as that.

As for solo play, the way you put it was a nightmare amulet effect which can spawn 5 nightmare creatures, which is even harder than what I suggested even when dealing normal damage. Sure, you might be able to handle it, but for someonewho doesn't know how to kite, a player lagging, or simply a player that's not very good at the game, going insane with these settings is not just "hard"; it's a death sentence.

 

10 minutes ago, Toros said:

Wolfgang as I currently have him has several downsides.

Well, sure, and I actually think those changes are ok, but I'm talking about the Wolfgang we all have right now. Since our Wolfgang has no such downsides, I can't factor them in on my purposal.

[Toros]

2 minutes ago, Clawder said:

While I understand there's a lot of things to be considered (like the shadow creatures in the ruins), I don't think it's fair to "use" Wolfgang as a farm for nightmare fuel. I think it should be a punishment to be insane as Wolfgang, and not exploitable as easy as that.

As for solo play, the way you put it was a nightmare amulet effect which can spawn 5 nightmare creatures, which is even harder than what I suggested even when dealing normal damage. Sure, you might be able to handle it, but for someonewho doesn't know how to kite, a player lagging, or simply a player that's not very good at the game, going insane with these settings is not just "hard"; it's a death sentence.

 

Well, sure, and I actually think those changes are ok, but I'm talking about the Wolfgang we all have right now. Since our Wolfgang has no such downsides, I can't factor them in on my purposal.

4 shadows you only damage at 60% are much worse than 5 shadows you damage at 100% by any analysis I can apply.  You’re just as likely to be swarmed but it’s much easier to kill one and stop the attack.

With the current implementation it doesn’t help Wolfgang solo farm fuel under any circumstances because while more spawn, killing any of them is going to cause them to despawn due to his sanity being boosted.

I can appreciate you’re making suggestions for vanilla Wolfgang, but I don’t believe that he is a good starting point for trying to balance from.  While his kit is powerful it is also boring and his usage stats reflect this.  In my OP I suggested a nerfed version of Wolfgang that we could add interesting upsides and downsides to because I believe that is a much better route to having a character that is both fun and balanced to play.

[Clawder]

10 minutes ago, Toros said:

In my OP I suggested a nerfed version of Wolfgang that we could add interesting upsides and downsides to because I believe that is a much better route to having a character that is both fun and balanced to play.

Hmmmmmm...

Well, if that's what we're tweaking, how about this:

-Monsters get an alternative version of themselves when Wolfgang fights them at low sanity. Much like rabbits turn nightmare-ish when a player goes low, spiders could get spookier, maybe attacking slightly faster, or gaining the jump attack without extra damage; deerclops could turn into feastclops, and so on and so forth.

-For the reason above, I'd reduce the nightmare amulet effect to 4 shadows max (same reason, 5 is too much I think)

-I'm on par with removing the speed penalty on marble armor and piggybackpack, but you should definitely not be able to move full speed while carrying heavy objects, much less having a free arm slot while doing so. I suggest reducing the speed reduction to -50% on normal Wolfgang and -80% on mighty wolfgang, and taking away the hand slot as well.

-Furthermore, I would add a special craft in the tools tab to Wolfgang: A cart for materials that only he can deploy or move around (and dismantle like Warly's crockpot) with a scaled chest's carry capacity that can only store materials such as logs or minerals. This can make Wolfgang synergize with resource collecters.

[Justad00d]

A cart sounds interesting as a concept, but what if, for instamce, it would allow you to move heavy items, and break down after limited use, so you'd have to consistently craft it? That way moving the objects is not free and fast, but you could carry it using just the hand slot, and keep your chest slot free, or drag it with your chest slot, and have the arm slots free? Make it so Wolfgang can use it with only a slight movement speed decrease, while other characters would get their normal "crawling" slow walk as they normally do carrying heavy objects, but because of Wolfgang making the trolley for them, would have the option of keeping on armor or a backpack, or keeping a hand item equipped. And maybe if Wolfgang hooks the trolley to a beefalo, he can equip a chest or multiple heavy items, and only get a slight movement speed reduction if the beefalo is dragging more than one heavy object. Would add a lot of use to keeping a beefalo around too, since they can be walking chests. Could label it as a perk from Wolfgang's familiarity with farm work or something too, since all these ideas follow the same theme. Getting even more creative with this idea, you could go the route of making it so different versions of the Trolley could even have planted crops, like a mobile produce stand, or design one like a carriage to act like a mobile sleeper cart you could rest in, or maybe a carriage would allow you to bring pets and partners on trips without worrying about them flying out in the open, so he can bring all his friends safely wherever he wants to go, while still having the option to roll it himself, or tame a beefalo or maybe even no eyed deer or voltgoats for different leads. Lot of potential actually

Edit: I think if the trolley can break down, it should only do so with getting damage, or with loading and unloading heavy objects, and the versions tied to beefalo may only need to be "repaired" like a boat kit if it gets damaged. Also, if we made a carriage, it would allow Wolfgang to have a portable and reliable way to keep glommer's sanity buff closeby. I'm imagining people playing an incredibly sane wolfgang wearing a light amulet, riding with a pudgy beefalo with a gossamer saddle pulling a flower trolley with a glommer in it for like infinite sanity. Would give a lot of options, and if the saddle is breakable, with maybe the effect of momentum taking a second to build up, then you'd not have the option to drag it into boss fights or anything, so it would strictly be nomadic, but convenient and safe.

Maybe another idea for a craft able item would be to mitigate the beefalo getting hungry, so it will never buck you off. Instead of getting bucked off when its hungry or it shaking loose the carriage, you could craft and equip a "bag of oats" type bridle for them to chow on, and when they're hungry, they'll just slow down for a second after an audio cue, chow on it automatically without completely stopping, and start charging again after like one munch. It'll refill their hunger by a small amount each time they munch with maybe 3 or 5 servings per use, but enough that each time they munch on it, you're guaranteed another good span of sprint time

[Scarecrow0_0]

On 4/27/2020 at 9:18 PM, Toros said:

Ignores marble + piggyback slowdown while not wimpy - This is to give unloved items an extra bonus in his hands, and fits with him being strong.  Also gives normal Wolfgang some minor perks.

Wait a second... So your telling me I'm going to have to give up my Krampus Sack to a player who doesn't have one because I can carry more in a piggyback with no downsides. Oof, that's dangerous...

[Toros]

9 hours ago, Scarecrow0_0 said:

Wait a second... So your telling me I'm going to have to give up my Krampus Sack to a player who doesn't have one because I can carry more in a piggyback with no downsides. Oof, that's dangerous...

Have to?  Absolutely not.  What I’m telling you is you could upgrade to a piggyback basically immediately and enjoy the extra slots before getting a krampus sack.

[Scarecrow0_0]

Also, I worry about wolf losing his natural high learning curve. If he just has basic buffs and stats, there's less skill in managing hunger and such so you can be mighty at just the right time. And unpopular opinion, I think that his long transition time adds difficulty to an already overpowered player. Not only do I have to worry about being wimpy and mighty at correct time, I also have to make sure I don't transition when movement is critical. (two cents from a wolf main)

[Justad00d]

I'm realizing that if we make Wolfgang able to carry heavy chest items without being slowed, he'd probably be able to have a lot more food on hand early on. It would definitely mitigate the difficulty in keeping your hunger up

[PanAzej]

Wolfgang's power comes from abundance of food and player knowledge.

The fun of playing as Wolfgang comes from his sheer strength. So I would NOT lower his damage output.

Since his power comes from food, you have to either limit his diet or give him a significant disadvantage in a different area than combat. Alternatively, limit combat in other aspects than damage without making that perk of increased damage worthless.

- Increasing sanity drain is a bad idea. This will make the increased damage worthless, as Wolfgang will have to use that damage to combat newly spawned enemies (shadows).

- Slowing Wolfgang down - this could probably work? Wolfgang would have to tank, kiting would be out of the question. The problem with Wolfgang being slow while Mighty is the fact that he cannot simply lower his hunger and being slow in Don't Starve (where all characters already move slowly) is just a terrible design choice. So that is a bad idea.

Maybe a different perk?

Something that would be in character?

Big muscle man - maybe brawns over brains? Maybe he has a really bad memory and cannot remember recipes from more advanced science? This would make it so that he has to come to the base to craft all needed stuff.

But he comes to the base to prepare food anyways. So, again, this is not a good idea.

Do I have an answer how Wolfgang should be changed? More importantly, should he be changed?

Well, no, I don't have an answer to that. He has a nice gameplay loop already. Yes, he's the "meta" character, but there is always a "meta" and you cannot change that. If Wolfgang gets nerfed into oblivion another character will rise to the top.

[Toros]

16 minutes ago, PanAzej said:

Wolfgang's power comes from abundance of food and player knowledge.

The fun of playing as Wolfgang comes from his sheer strength. So I would NOT lower his damage output.

Since his power comes from food, you have to either limit his diet or give him a significant disadvantage in a different area than combat. Alternatively, limit combat in other aspects than damage without making that perk of increased damage worthless.

- Increasing sanity drain is a bad idea. This will make the increased damage worthless, as Wolfgang will have to use that damage to combat newly spawned enemies (shadows).

- Slowing Wolfgang down - this could probably work? Wolfgang would have to tank, kiting would be out of the question. The problem with Wolfgang being slow while Mighty is the fact that he cannot simply lower his hunger and being slow in Don't Starve (where all characters already move slowly) is just a terrible design choice. So that is a bad idea.

Maybe a different perk?

Something that would be in character?

Big muscle man - maybe brawns over brains? Maybe he has a really bad memory and cannot remember recipes from more advanced science? This would make it so that he has to come to the base to craft all needed stuff.

But he comes to the base to prepare food anyways. So, again, this is not a good idea.

Do I have an answer how Wolfgang should be changed? More importantly, should he be changed?

Well, no, I don't have an answer to that. He has a nice gameplay loop already. Yes, he's the "meta" character, but there is always a "meta" and you cannot change that. If Wolfgang gets nerfed into oblivion another character will rise to the top.

The OP has a lot of my ideas around this.  I agree with most of your points, particularly not harming his damage output.