So what are Walter's Downsides?

[jpmrocks]

1 minute ago, Sweaper said:

"Walter can't tank without losing sanity" FTFY. That's his downside.

Then dont tank, kite. Fixed your problem, you shouldnt be tanking as any character to begin with, except maybe Wigfrid.

8 minutes ago, Chris1448 said:

This whole thread is just flexing that you know how to kite.

|If kiting cures Walter's downside, then it's not a downside.

[GuyNamedChris]

3 minutes ago, jpmrocks said:

If kiting cures Walter's downside, then it's not a downside.

Yes it is.

[Sweaper]

5 minutes ago, jpmrocks said:

Then dont tank, kite. Fixed your problem, you shouldnt be tanking as any character to begin with, except maybe Wigfrid.

I was waiting for this response just to say that you too can fix Wolf's hunger problems by knowing where the food sources are or making farms, now his hunger is not an issue. You can learn how to cook good food to have Warly's downside be a non issue. Learn other healing sources to make Wormwood health problems a non issue. The same way you learn kiting to make drop in sanity for Walter a non issue. But the downsides are still there, you are just avoiding them by playing around their downsides.

[Frashaw27]

Your entire argument can be surmised with the JonTron clip: 

 

Yes, being a kiting god can negate Walters entire downside, but that also requires perfection and even then a bad roll of the dice can screw you over. A example is when I wad playing with him, I got a hound wave that had weirdly timed hounds and so I just resorted to tanking sonce kitong would have taken significantly longer. Yes, it is avoidable, but thats like saying how by the idea of nuclear bunkers existing makes nukes jokes and negated. Please, stop this mantra of "because I can do fights perfectly means that his downside is pointless" and see everyone elses opinion. It is downside, one that you may not be personally affected by, but it is still a downside none the less.

[ArubaroBeefalo]

6 minutes ago, jpmrocks said:

Then dont tank, kite. Fixed your problem, you shouldnt be tanking as any character to begin with, except maybe Wigfrid.

|If kiting cures Walter's downside, then it's not a downside.

if healing salves cures wormwoods downside, then its not a downside

if having food cures warlys downside, then its not a downside

shall i keep saying?

edit.

just...

 

[jpmrocks]

17 minutes ago, Frashaw27 said:

Your entire argument can be surmised with the JonTron clip: 

 

Yes, being a kiting god can negate Walters entire downside, but that also requires perfection and even then a bad roll of the dice can screw you over. A example is when I wad playing with him, I got a hound wave that had weirdly timed hounds and so I just resorted to tanking sonce kitong would have taken significantly longer. Yes, it is avoidable, but thats like saying how by the idea of nuclear bunkers existing makes nukes jokes and negated. Please, stop this mantra of "because I can do fights perfectly means that his downside is pointless" and see everyone elses opinion. It is downside, one that you may not be personally affected by, but it is still a downside none the less.

 

16 minutes ago, ArubaroBeefalo said:

if healing salves cures wormwoods downside, then its not a downside

if having food cures warlys downside, then its not a downside

shall i keep saying?

edit.

just...

 

Except you still have to work around Wormwood not being able to heal with food, or Wortox needing souls, or WX not being wet, etc. Where with Walter, you dont. Kiting is a, if not THE core combat principle of Dont Starve. It was eddective in 2013, it's effective today. It a core part of gameplay on the pure fact you have to learn to kite eventually. Walter's downside, his one serious downside, is on the exact same route. 

So yes, it's a case of "do the thing", but youre learning to do the thing with everyone else, might as well use the character whos downside is the thing you HAVE to learn.

[b l a n k]

28 minutes ago, jpmrocks said:

|If kiting cures Walter's downside, then it's not a downside.

Nice, does that apply to Maxwell too ?

[Sweaper]

20 minutes ago, jpmrocks said:

 

Except you still have to work around Wormwood not being able to heal with food, or Wortox needing souls, or WX not being wet, etc. Where with Walter, you dont. Kiting is a, if not THE core combat principle of Dont Starve. It was eddective in 2013, it's effective today. It a core part of gameplay on the pure fact you have to learn to kite eventually. Walter's downside, his one serious downside, is on the exact same route. 

So yes, it's a case of "do the thing", but youre learning to do the thing with everyone else, might as well use the character whos downside is the thing you HAVE to learn.

Not everyone knows how to kite, if you don't know how to you'll have a very bad time as Walter, more so than any other characters since you won't be able to kite shadows either.

Not everyone knows how to efficiently get food, if you don't know that you'll have a very bad time as Wolf.

Not everyone knows how to (insert thing here), if you don't then bad time with (insert character here).

Good that you can kite, but you don't need to kite to survive in DST, it's not essential to the game, helpful yes but you can do everything with enough setup or players without kiting. Armor is op statwise in this game and food eating speed too. The good thing about kiting is how cheap in resource and time it is. The core combat in DS is killing before you're killed, because there are just too many ways to kill things besides kiting.

[thegreatmanagement]

My biggest issue with Walter isn't anything to do with his need to kite or not; my biggest problem with him is that Woby's extra 9 inventory slots is almost game bendingly broken. Having a free 9 inventory slots with absolutely no downside is pretty broken no?

• You don't need to craft a Woby or feed him anything at all to have him be able to store 9 items
• He's immortal (he can't die, always follows you) 
• He's available day 1 with no cooldowns or anything like that

Inventory space being limited is one of the fundamental limitations in a survival game and in DST as a whole, and Woby circumvents this in an overly convenient way. You're not supposed to be able to hold too many items on you because a restriction on what you can harvest/transport makes the game fair. Especially in certain areas like in the caves, ruins or lunar islands Walter's massive inventory becomes an absurdly good benefit with no practical justification.

Another issue with it is that his inventory space benefit is completely independent of player skill to use and benefit from. Almost all other character perks and benefits are in some way augmented by the personal player's skill and knowledge of the game, and that's fair right? For example,  Wickerbottom's knowledge of tier 1 science means she can't get the free sanity from cheap science tier prototypes; Willow's lighter doesn't last forever; Bernie is only able to take so much damage before becoming useless; Abigail also has limited HP; Wilson's beard which passively grows requires time to grow and is a negative attribute when summer starts. Wigfrid's bonus damage is mitigated by the player's ability to fight and actually use it, and that's fair. But Woby's free inventory ignores any aspect of actual balance. I think this above anything else needs to be changed in some way to make Walter a more balanced character. 

 

[Sweaper]

Just now, thegreatmanagement said:

My biggest issue with Walter isn't anything to do with his need to kite or not; my biggest problem with him is that Woby's extra 9 inventory slots is almost game bendingly broken. Having a free 9 inventory slots with absolutely no downside is pretty broken no?

• You don't need to craft a Woby or feed him anything at all to have him be able to store 9 items
• He's immortal (he can't die, always follows you) 
• He's available day 1 with no cooldowns or anything like that

Inventory space being limited is one of the fundamental limitations in a survival game and in DST as a whole, and Woby circumvents this in an overly convenient way. You're not supposed to be able to hold too many items on you because a restriction on what you can harvest/transport makes the game fair. Especially in certain areas like in the caves, ruins or lunar islands Walter's massive inventory becomes an absurdly good benefit with no practical justification.

Another issue with it is that his inventory space benefit is completely independent of player skill to use and benefit from. Almost all other character perks and benefits are in some way augmented by the personal player's skill and knowledge of the game, and that's fair right? For example,  Wickerbottom's knowledge of tier 1 science means she can't get the free sanity from cheap science tier prototypes; Willow's lighter doesn't last forever; Bernie is only able to take so much damage before becoming useless; Abigail also has limited HP; Wilson's beard which passively grows requires time to grow and is a negative attribute when summer starts. Wigfrid's bonus damage is mitigated by the player's ability to fight and actually use it, and that's fair. But Woby's free inventory ignores any aspect of actual balance. I think this above anything else needs to be changed in some way to make Walter a more balanced character. 

 

People always did good without chester, you just need to manage your inventory better and stop carrying useless stuff. And there is a big downside if you're playing in publics.

It's nice to have a personal immortal chester but I never had inventory problems after I learned how to properly plan.

[SouthTom]

23 minutes ago, jpmrocks said:

 

Except you still have to work around Wormwood not being able to heal with food

How come Wormwood hp is a problem if you don't get hit?

His downside is also negated by "learning to kite". Why is it so different now?

[thegreatmanagement]

1 minute ago, Sweaper said:

People always did good without chester, you just need to manage your inventory better and stop carrying useless stuff. And there is a big downside if you're playing in publics.

It's nice to have a personal immortal chester but I never had inventory problems after I learned how to properly plan.

You're right people always did good, but people do better (unfairly better imo) with Woby. Things in ruins are not useless also in large part... How is Woby a downside in public servers also? You can keep items you don't want to lose in your own inventory, and riding Woby means he cannot be stolen from. Also on top of that Walter having Woby + Chester is just at that point too much (nothing stops Walter from having a chester on top) 

I don't have inventory management problems, but I do find myself unable to do/hold more frequently in places like caves, lunar island and ruins. Those places require you to transport the maximum amount of distinct items back, and there's no way to do it apart from making a second trip frequently. Especially in ruins when there is such a variety of treasure to bring back to your own ruins base/the surface base, as any other character you're just out of luck and that's part of the challenge. As Walter, those problems pretty much vanish no? 

[Sweaper]

1 minute ago, thegreatmanagement said:

You can keep items you don't want to lose in your own inventory, and riding Woby means he cannot be stolen from.

Because I only carry things I don't want to lose, no time to lose, gotta go fast in publics.

[ArubaroBeefalo]

26 minutes ago, jpmrocks said:

 

Except you still have to work around Wormwood not being able to heal with food, or Wortox needing souls, or WX not being wet, etc. Where with Walter, you dont. Kiting is a, if not THE core combat principle of Dont Starve. It was eddective in 2013, it's effective today. It a core part of gameplay on the pure fact you have to learn to kite eventually. Walter's downside, his one serious downside, is on the exact same route. 

So yes, it's a case of "do the thing", but youre learning to do the thing with everyone else, might as well use the character whos downside is the thing you HAVE to learn.

or walter being 100% focused all the time you fight...

[thegreatmanagement]

1 minute ago, Sweaper said:

Because I only carry things I don't want to lose, no time to lose, gotta go fast in publics.

Sure we would all prefer to not lose things if possible, but you have to admit there's always going to be a certain item that you're more willing to lose right? Like for me I'll typically store all tools, torches, low quantity stacks of common resources inside Chester because it honestly doesn't take that long to organize your inventory. I'm not saying that there's things I want to lose because of course we ideally as players wouldn't want to lose anything in a perfect world. 

[gaymime]

dude, the only things i know how to kite consistently are bearger and bees and both of them still get me sometimes >___>;;;;  and frankly that isn't really kiting most of the time. it is hitting at melee range then running out of melee range or kiting but using other mobs as the tool for attacking(for those who do not know; kiting requires you to maintain distance between you and the target when running AND when attacking)

 

the bulk of the people complaining about how kiting and sanity management aren't real downsides clearly are not the target demographic for the character. you don't need walter to get better at the game and he's probably not the character for you if you want a challenge. that being said it is ok to be unhappy a character isn't meant for you, we all like to be the one who things are catered to but is ok if we aren't. sometimes it is nice when someone else who is struggling gets the help they need to make everyones overall experience better by being less of a burden on the group. perhaps if challenges are something you desire you could try wes? i hear he's quite a lark!

[Booklover]

Playing Walter in less than Green Connection servers can be hell for those who aren't used to fighting. Yes, I can kite mobs but after my few months long hiatus from DST, my kiting skills are rusty and I'm having trouble kiting in less than average connections.

Not to mention, getting hit by anything somewhat "dangerous" makes you go insane so quickly. I got bit a few times as Walter and I was almost insane. I got slapped by a mere Birchnut Tree Tentacle and my sanity plummet to the abyss. Not to mention, after getting hurt, my sanity is still dropping just like my fps.

The only thing that saved me was Wendy's Sisturn (idk why she built it but thank goodness), Glommer and constantly telling a story about some bog monster at night. Could I have kited better? I'm not sure as my ping was on a rollercoaster to heaven and hell.

Was his storytelling strong? Yes. I recovered around 30-40 sanity per night talking about a man with a clock. Was his downside big? If you have a bad connection or you're bad at fighting? Yes, very big. It's a rabbithole. You take damage, go insane, take more damage from shadow monsters, sanity keeps dropping cuz your hp is low and you basically almost never recover unless you have sanity foods.

So please, Mr. I Can Kite Bosses, please actually flatten your ego abit because there are people who have lives and haven't spent it all on a videogame yet.

[Mike23Ua]

“crippling downsides” has faded away with each rework.

I mean I’m sitting here playing as Wortox and I’m thinking to myself.. has this game EVER actually been hard? Or was I just a total noob at it back then? 
 

What I mean by that is- Wortox is an Overpowered God and nothing dares to challenge him Ever... Once you KNOW how to Wortox you well, you win the game. Same as Any other Character..

Wanting crippling downsides is less of a problem in Walters design and more of a problem that there ISNT an Uncompromising Mode.. I can speak from my own PERSONAL Skill Level playing as Walter that if the simple Hand Holding Features I’m so used to being so heavily reliant upon, Such as Butterflies restoring health and hunger points, or FOOD and SLEEP did not heal you EVER.... I can say that for ME (Personally) playing as Walter in Uncompromising settings would be a complete Nightmare for Me.

Walter, Wurt, Wendy, Willow, Woodie, Wortox, They all share the same problem- a Ton of Upside and no real frustrating Downside.. They don’t NEED to become more frustrating to play for Casual players.. what they NEED is a dedicated Harder UNCOMPROMISING MODE (this is where any and ALL crippling Downsides should exist)

[thegreatmanagement]

 I actually disagree about the points of kiting; yes kiting does solve his issue of taking damage and losing sanity, but some mobs just aren't possible/practical to kite (like the bishop, cave spiders) Kiting is also a skills based issue, and shouldn't be factored in for something all players cannot readily do. As I said above, this makes his characteristic of not losing sanity unless being hit something that becomes more valuable when the player has the skill to utilize it, and I think that's balanced. He should lose sanity from other mechanics though, like wormholes; being able to freely traverse them is a bit unfair to me. 

Above those, the sanity/health loss itself is very conveniently negated by the portable tent which (over-conveniently) counters his biggest weakness though (it has 10 uses, can be deployed on the go and used very easily) as well as his story telling around the campfire. Walter's storytelling should also not give himself sanity, because why would you telling a story restore your own sanity? It should be a purely altruistic ability, because as it is right now it's basically a free and fast way to restore your sanity. 

[themightyone]

Walter seems pretty balanced to me. His sanity goes real fast when his health isn't perfect.  Plus his hunger and health are basically the lowest of any player. I would bet he may get tweaked a tad , but he had cons when I was playing and trying him out. 

[Sweaper]

Just now, thegreatmanagement said:

Sure we would all prefer to not lose things if possible, but you have to admit there's always going to be a certain item that you're more willing to lose right? Like for me I'll typically store all tools, torches, low quantity stacks of common resources inside Chester because it honestly doesn't take that long to organize your inventory. I'm not saying that there's things I want to lose because of course we ideally as players wouldn't want to lose anything in a perfect world. 

I would dread losing grass, twigs, flint and pig skins. That's all I carry besides season gear, thermal and umbrella, a torch and hambat which I also would dread losing them or not having in my inventory. Lantern (+ moggles) if I plan to go ruins otherwise I don't bother prototyping lanterns. This gives you a lot of free slot to carry anything useless really and I make and drop tools as I need them and get food as I find them. In publics this never failed me, worst case scenario I drop my tools I won't need anymore and take ruins stuff. Lunar island will take me around 3-6 slots, unless you're making multiple weapons/tools, but I only go there for the free axes (1-3 slots), bushes (3) and maybe kelp (2-3). But for shoveling saplings, grass and berry bushes it is nice to have a free chester, that is if I bothered with it in public servers. In private, I wouldn't pick Walter just because of the free chester. And in my world I already have a pretty useless chester already.

But apparently many people think that having an invincible chester is that good, but I just don't see the need for all those slots for myself so my opinion on that is better off being ignored.

[thegreatmanagement]

2 minutes ago, Sweaper said:

I would dread losing grass, twigs, flint and pig skins. That's all I carry besides season gear, thermal and umbrella, a torch and hambat which I also would dread losing them or not having in my inventory. Lantern (+ moggles) if I plan to go ruins otherwise I don't bother prototyping lanterns. This gives you a lot of free slot to carry anything useless really and I make and drop tools as I need them and get food as I find them. In publics this never failed me, worst case scenario I drop my tools I won't need anymore and take ruins stuff. Lunar island will take me around 3-6 slots, unless you're making multiple weapons/tools, but I only go there for the free axes (1-3 slots), bushes (3) and maybe kelp (2-3). But for shoveling saplings, grass and berry bushes it is nice to have a free chester, that is if I bothered with it in public servers. In private, I wouldn't pick Walter just because of the free chester. And in my world I already have a pretty useless chester already.

But apparently many people think that having an invincible chester is that good, but I just don't see the need for all those slots for myself so my opinion on that is better off being ignored.

For me when I do ruins, I usually have enough space to carry most things but I end up having to drop things; I don't believe that there are "useless" items in DST, I think there are items that are more useful than others though and of course you would drop an item that isn't as useful as another item you'd keep. For instance, in ruins the sheer diversity in loot means you intrinsically (as a non Walter character) cannot hold all of it (except maybe with Hutch, but even then it's a stretch) since there's 6 different types of gems, nightmare fuel, thulecite, fragments, slurper pelts (which are frequently dropped), melty marbles (also frequently dropped), frazzled wires, and gears, among the other things. The items you find inside chests at the labyrinth/after fighting the Ancient Guardian also take up more inventory space, on top of bringing crafted items at the pseudoscience stations back to surface. All of this means that any possible inventory space you have will massively benefit both your looting (in the actual ruins) capability and your transporting capabilities back to base, which is why I think Woby is really too good for the sake of the game. At least make Woby have a limitation/cost to use or make. 

[Sweaper]

1 minute ago, thegreatmanagement said:

For me when I do ruins, I usually have enough space to carry most things but I end up having to drop things; I don't believe that there are "useless" items in DST, I think there are items that are more useful than others though and of course you would drop an item that isn't as useful as another item you'd keep. For instance, in ruins the sheer diversity in loot means you intrinsically (as a non Walter character) cannot hold all of it (except maybe with Hutch, but even then it's a stretch) since there's 6 different types of gems, nightmare fuel, thulecite, fragments, slurper pelts (which are frequently dropped), melty marbles (also frequently dropped), frazzled wires, and gears, among the other things. The items you find inside chests at the labyrinth/after fighting the Ancient Guardian also take up more inventory space, on top of bringing crafted items at the pseudoscience stations back to surface. All of this means that any possible inventory space you have will massively benefit both your looting (in the actual ruins) capability and your transporting capabilities back to base, which is why I think Woby is really too good for the sake of the game. At least make Woby have a limitation/cost to use or make. 

Yes there are no useless items if we consider you'll be playing for a long time, in the same server/world. In publics for example you usually have no use for the gems, besides crafting the things you want right now, because time, fuel can be left there if no one built a shadow manipulator and you don't want to waste time building one yourself, frazzled wires, as much as gold are cool, you don't need that many in publics, thulecites and fragments can be left there too, pelts same problem with shadow manipulator, so all in all, for public you'll have plenty of inventory space.

As for private worlds, considering it's one you know will survive for a long time, half of the gems have no use outside ruins and that's enough to carry everything. Unless you're making a lot of equipment, but after you are done with everything you can always drop your weapon, grass, twigs, helmets, lightbulbs, tools to carry more stuff. Yes, invincible chester is good, but I'll ignore it anyway, specially with a cost to use.

[ArubaroBeefalo]

3 minutes ago, Sweaper said:

Yes there are no useless items if we consider you'll be playing for a long time, in the same server/world. In publics for example you usually have no use for the gems, besides crafting the things you want right now, because time, fuel can be left there if no one built a shadow manipulator and you don't want to waste time building one yourself, frazzled wires, as much as gold are cool, you don't need that many in publics, thulecites and fragments can be left there too, pelts same problem with shadow manipulator, so all in all, for public you'll have plenty of inventory space.

As for private worlds, considering it's one you know will survive for a long time, half of the gems have no use outside ruins and that's enough to carry everything. Unless you're making a lot of equipment, but after you are done with everything you can always drop your weapon, grass, twigs, helmets, lightbulbs, tools to carry more stuff. Yes, invincible chester is good, but I'll ignore it anyway, specially with a cost to use.

having his slots is for free, what has a cost is to ride him. Its not op but really helps

[Sweaper]

38 minutes ago, ArubaroBeefalo said:

having his slots is for free, what has a cost is to ride him. Its not op but really helps

 

1 hour ago, thegreatmanagement said:

At least make Woby have a limitation/cost to use or make. 

Meant for that

But I agree that it helps

edit: Actually, I take the things I said before back. You can ruins rush during winter by fireplace/pit spamming with Woby stocked w/ rock, grass and log making him a lot more useful.