[Poll] On Walter's Update, Postmortem

[GetNerfedOn]

Next on my list of questions: how was the Walter update to you? Yay or nay?

As always, answer freely and of your own will, and discuss in the comments!

[Harrowick]

I love the tent, I love the tent, I love the tent. I've always loved Nomadic gameplay, and Walter is the perfect character for playing on public servers where the bases never usually last long, so I usually just explored and made my own fun anyways. 

[andrakuz]

Walters a nice character overall, though the ammunition for his sling shot should be reduced to 5 rather than 10 per craft. His sanity drain is pretty shocking but the hat helps and I think his hunger should either drain less or be increased. As range character I think his health is good where it is and Woby is fine but it I feel like it devalues Chester by having the same inventory space.

[luvu2bits]

18 minutes ago, andrakuz said:

Walters a nice character overall, though the ammunition for his sling shot should be reduced to 5 rather than 10 per craft. His sanity drain is pretty shocking but the hat helps and I think his hunger should either drain less or be increased. As range character I think his health is good where it is and Woby is fine but it I feel like it devalues Chester by having the same inventory space.

I'd say if ammunition per craft is reduced, damage should be increased
Especially for the basic pebbles, those really suck

[MondayNight]

Walter is ok-ish in my book. I would've preferred if his main con was allergies (to Flowers, Butterflies, Moon Moths, and Butter Muffins, Honey and all honey-centered meals, nuts, Bees and cats, BQ plus Antlion - manifested in additional damage and inability to eat for a certain amount of time after contact with mentioned allergens), but for an intended range dmg-character his con makes sense (massive sanity loss when taking damage). Other than that feels a bit bloated with active game-play traits; they so-and-so synergize with the "boy scout" concept, yet.. too much going on there. Woby is ok. And if memory serves well, in past forumites proposed various ranged/tamer character ideas... thus

[sinisterrkid]

Walter is the perfect character for exploring the caves.

Extra inventory, portable tent with 10 uses, no sanity drain (unless you get hit).

I love it.

Also Woby so cute

[Starlogy]

3 polls in the span of an hour? This a new record for you?

[GetNerfedOn]

8 minutes ago, Starlogy said:

3 polls in the span of an hour? This a new record for you?

4, actually XD

And, yep, guess its a new record for me hahahaha 

[Scrimbles]

Woby feels completely disconnected from Walter, neither have synergy with eachother, and I hardly count using the slingshot while riding her because thats such a small bonus.

 

Walter on his own is fine, mostly because of his downside, I'm surprised Klei actually made it as hefty as they did, though, insanity in the vanilla game isnt very punishing. Walter kinda just had a random collection of utility/convenience perks, which I'm fine with, im the kind of person who mains Wickerbottom for her tier 1 science, and Warly for the portable crock pot.

 

My problems with Walter are thus:

If Walter had inventory management problems, like he had fewer, or holding items in your inventory made you slower, I would understand Woby.

If Woby was targetable by mobs and could draw aggro so Walter could get some shots in with his slingshot, I would understand Woby.

 

But Woby has nothing like that, shes not even killable, just an invincible Chester.

This is the same way characters like Winona, Warly, and Wurt feel, their main benefits are a by product of their character, but arent integral, or even exclusive to their character.

Winona builds catapults, buy doesnt rely on them, or have any further interaction after building them, and thats her only perk.

Warly has a variety of food buffs and spices that apply generic bonuses to anyone who eats them, but they dont support or synergize with parts of Warlys character, they just exist in their own bubble.

Wurt is a vegetarian with no crop synergy, and a merm base builder with no reliance on anything she can build, just pig houses with a reskin.

 

Woby is a byproduct of picking Walter, you could just as easily say any other character has a pet dog and staple it into them, and it sould make as much sense gameplay wise.

[sinisterrkid]

23 minutes ago, Ogrecakes said:

[...]

Woby is a byproduct of picking Walter, you could just as easily say any other character has a pet dog and staple it into them, and it sould make as much sense gameplay wise.

I understand your criticism but the reason it doesn't resonate with me is because you could also say that of almost every character, and it has never bothered me or most people. For instance, Wickerbottom's books. how is it integral to the character to summon birds, or tentacles, or put mobs to sleep? I can see the synergy in growing crops and getting less benefits from spoiled food, but that's about it. Maybe having higher sanity and losing it from reading the books? Or where's the synergy really with Maxwell's shadows? It was supposed to be that to compensate for his frailty we'd get a shadow warrior puppet, but this one is barely usable, and Maxwell's biggest perk is shadow wood choppers, miners and diggers. How is that integral? There is synergy though in being frail and able to use shadow armor without the big sanity loss, so it's always been the case that some perks have and some don't.

I guess what you are really trying to ask for here is symmetry in all upsides and downsides. Symmetries such as: Wolfgang gets stronger on a full belly, but has a long animation when changing forms making him more vulnerable. Or: Wormwood can easily grow vegetables, but doesn't fully benefit from them. Lots of characters old and new have a mix of symmetric and add-on-perks. (Unless they have very few perks, like Wolfgang and Wigfrid)

[Yuuko]

I really dig the slingshot for its convenience.  Its nice to just shoot a bird or butterfly without wasting much effort.  Its also good to draw agro on mobs easily without dealing with a boomerang.  The sanity mechanics are also pretty cool!  I like that I can basically ignore most ambient sanity issues, yet can still get that compounding sanity monsters + whatever fight I'm in if I mess up and take too much damage.

I really like the character for these reasons.

Some things are kinda throw away for me.  I'll never tell a story around a camp fire, or use a portable sleeping tent.  Bee allergies are a complete non-issue.  Bees aren't hard to fight, and I'm fully willing to farm bee queen without wasting my time actually trying to fight her.  Woby is often forgotten.  I can get a walking cane and not really care about the ms boost.  Taming a beefalo enough to move marble pieces has never been too much work.  I rarely ever keep chester with me for extra storage.

I suspect he'll be a bit like Wendy.  I enjoyed her for a bit after her rework but then went back to my usual Willow / Wes games.  I'll probably play Walter for a few weeks, but nothing about his personality is growing on me :\  Probably because he's too happy...

[Mysterious box]

If I had to give my opinion on Walter it'd mainly be on his slingshot I feel it's very unwhelming I understand that the  mass majority of the community feel it'd be too powerful if it was on par with melee but I personally don't see that and it seems more fair when compared to existing characters.

Firstly Wendy, Abigail is  not just a huge combat support but a substitute for combat outside of bosses depending on how well you control and invest into her.

Winona seems to be excused because the general idea seems to be her power is everyone's power due to swap but I don't think I need to tell people how powerful her catapults can be on their own with some very easy investments.

While I could use other examples I feel Wendy and Winona are the best comparisons for Walters slingshot as they both represent characters with ranged combat opportunities in it's current state Walter's slingshot is something you grow out of it gives the illusion of safety when realistic it is the most dangerous combat method the distance you fire from isn't particularly far, your locked in place, and the rate of fire is slow to the point of being silly.

Something I will say is while I don't hate Woby I do feel that another reason the slingshot isn't considered very poor is because he has Woby and fearlessness which makes it seem like it's ok enough since he also has other things which I'm not going to lie makes me sad I was really looking forward to seeing a viable ranged character you actively control even if they had to adapt the game in a way to properly counter it but anyway that's my opinion on it no more no less.

[E1234]

I love the speed fix to Woby but did they nerf gold pellets too? Do they not one shot birds anymore?

[YouKnowWho]

One thing I appreciate about Walter and Woby is they sort of incentivize you to wear body slot items, since to really take full advantage of Walter's hat you need to wear armor (otherwise you're just gonna be half sane and half dead) Usually, people are pretty attached to their backpacks, but having the extra inventory space always following you around makes the trade off much easier.

Plus, you can't really utilize a football helm and the pioneer hat at the same time, which kind of makes my go-to backpack/helmet combo a bit unreliable. 

5 hours ago, Ogrecakes said:

This is the same way characters like Winona, Warly, and Wurt feel, their main benefits are a by product of their character, but arent integral, or even exclusive to their character.

Winona builds catapults, buy doesnt rely on them, or have any further interaction after building them, and thats her only perk.

Warly has a variety of food buffs and spices that apply generic bonuses to anyone who eats them, but they dont support or synergize with parts of Warlys character, they just exist in their own bubble.

Wurt is a vegetarian with no crop synergy, and a merm base builder with no reliance on anything she can build, just pig houses with a reskin.

 

I think looking at things this way is a bit too self-contained. This is a multiplayer game after all, and one of the key factors of people working together is the ability to make up for the other's issues. That being said, when playing alone (which lots of people do, so it should be taken into account) these are valid points.

[gaymime]

i like that there is a viable newbie option now. it shouldn't be as much of a tooth-pulling to get new people to join the game and stick around for more than an hour or so

[thegreatJash]

I just feel that his perks aren't surrounding any certain theme, which sucks. He's got a slingshot, weird sanity, Woby, bee allergies, and enhanced survival experience. It's just all over the place. I like characters with certain themes, which is all the rest of them. I would to see him be more of a Boy Scout.

[GuyNamedChris]

I like everything about Walter, I just wish his slingshot had more range, and that telling stories took hunger to do.

[Faahresc]

10 hours ago, GetNerfedOn said:

Next on my list of questions: how was the Walter update to you? Yay or nay?

As always, answer freely and of your own will, and discuss in the comments!

Its definetely nay for me... Wes is even better than him without anything. He feels like so forced to me.