Wolfgang's Character Refresh is Coming Next Week!

[Orty97]

Just now, Treeomp said:

no, i think it is quite fun to hit the gym and do the minigame. The dumbbell is for when you need to hurry up

Was it fun clicking every 0.78'th of a second ?

[sawchuk]

1 minute ago, Orty97 said:

Was it fun clicking every 0.78'th of a second ?

You keep describing basic concepts included in most any video game and calling them bad. Do you actually not like to play video games or are you just being intentionally obtuse?

[Mike23Ua]

Hmm 14 seconds eating Meatball, 14 seconds lifting Gembell.. I really don’t see any difference..

The only difference would be that instead of just eating to be Mighty you now need to EARN that Mighty.. Of course the Best Dumbell will be the one that gains might fastest.. that’s sort of how PROGRESS works.

[landromat]

5 minutes ago, Orty97 said:

Was it fun clicking every 0.78'th of a second ?

is it fun to eat seeds every second?

[sudoku]

3 minutes ago, sawchuk said:

You keep describing basic concepts included in most any video game and calling them bad. Do you actually not like to play video games or are you just being intentionally obtuse?

Yes but clicking in this game usually comes with a gameplay decision you make. Minigames offer no such experoence 

[Orty97]

1 minute ago, landromat said:

is it fun to eat seeds every second?

I guess going trough the map and eating what you find on the road to keep a speed boost while exploring and doing chores is worse than having a quick time event that gives nothing but a damage boost right?
What a dumb question.

[landromat]

1 minute ago, Orty97 said:

I guess going trough the map and eating what you find on the road to keep a speed boost while exploring and doing chores is worse than having a quick time event that gives nothing but a damage boost right?
What a dumb question.

You can do same with dumbbells. question is not dumb

[Orty97]

7 minutes ago, sawchuk said:

You keep describing basic concepts included in most any video game and calling them bad. Do you actually not like to play video games or are you just being intentionally obtuse?

I just have a gripe with the dumb mechanics of mightiness they added. You do QTE's and watch animations now man. It literally couldn't get worse!
Before you could rationalise food for farming and fighting and healing. Now he is just Wilson with extra damage. WOW, what a fresh take on my boy Wolfgang.

1 minute ago, landromat said:

You can do same with dumbbells. question is not dumb

Didn't see you can get random dumbells trough the map, might have missed that part in the beta.

[HowlVoid]

I like the fact that the topic of speed is very clearly divisive. 

It means that speed is both a problem and important in Wolf's kit.

I hope that Klei will take both sides seriously because I have seen many compelling arguments made by both sides. This is a case where a compromise is justly deserved, but should be approached with ingenuity and creativity. 

[Milordo]

[reallychina]

On 12/11/2021 at 1:02 PM, reallychina said:

I clocked around 1500 hours as Wolfgang, it used to be my main until Wanda showed up. Since Wanda is such an amazing and fun character to play i've given up on Wolfgang, i am not as invested in what happens to him to begin with so i consider i can be more objective than current Wolfgang mains.

The speed nerf is massive and bad, people saying otherwise simply do not understand wolfgang meta. Despite being known for his might and double damage, manipulating speed was almost half of his perk. You could go slightly faster or I AM SPEED fast depending on needs, on food available and on how much you wanted to invest in food. There was a very thin line you'd have to cruise between eating for speed and still having food for max mighty on fights and that dynamic was great. That speed combined with other speed boosts and speed manipulation made wolfgang feel like wolfgang, Wolfgang was so good because you could also be fast and get a lot of stuff done, aside from fights feeling different. You could feel and use his power to the max because he had speed. But i can not stress enough that Wolfgang's speed usage was only partly related to actual fighting.

 

Or maybe tie his speed to his health to incentivize good playstyle? idk. But no speed on Wolfgang is just sad to watch and is a big mistake.

 

I understand why you went the weights way and i do believe it is an elegant solution that was meant to cap his power early game. This was necessary. This is in line with other characters and with general character development, it was absurd that Wolfgang could reach endgame power as soon as first minute day one and he would be no different in day 100 or 1000.

 

The weight station is great, the use of various statues for lifting is great. I don't know yet if a deerclops statue nets the same gain as an ancient fuelweaver one, i would expect endgame bosses to be better.  

 

The dumbbells are clunky and too slow, the first one being the worst offender. They also have too few uses. I was also disappointed there was no ruins dumbbell, you missed the chance to use yellow gems that tend to get hoarded anyway because of their limited use. 

Overall the dumbells break the flow. This would not necessarily be a problem if the mighty gain was significantly faster and they'd have more uses (even if they were to cost more resources). They have a similar function to Wanda's ageless watches, but those are instant. So it's not the dumbbells per se that are the issue but how long they take to get mightiness up and maintained. Wanda's watches have no durability but dumbbells break faster than sticks. Double or triple their cost if you will as long as they are more durable and increase mightiness faster.

You could make mightiness build faster if he's at over 90% or full health, incentivizing better playstyle instead of facetanking, like you did with Wanda.

His mightiness also degenerates too fast. He should also gain mightiness when mining, chopping, rowing as those are physical activities. Or at the very least freeze the meter.    On second thought it's fine

And lose mighty when hit (i think this is the best option imo because it also allows negative mighty control), as long as  generation is faster.

The other things you did like the piggyback, marblesuit, statue moving etc are very cool. 

There are also no additions for him being a team player, maybe just for moving statues but thats a one time thing.

I did insist on the negatives cause this is a feedback thread but i want to reiterate that overall the rework is great and i congratulate you for it, it just needs some tweaks,

 

Ok so having played the beta for a while now i want to correct some of the things i said.

 

First of all, something feels off in his dynamic, the weights interrupt the flow of the game. I do think they are a good addon but the system needs some rework. I completely understand the need to slow down Wolfgang's early game and the way you did it is fine and absolutely fits his persona. I also think it's ok that the gembell is gated behind the prehistihator, that's not too easy to get but also not too hard. 

 

The workout station

I appreciate that you can precraft the workout station and this opens up possibilities to make one in ruins or some remote places, they are very cheap even early game (just hammering 1 and 1/2 pig houses is more than enough). The problem is that while it's fun at first, it gets stale after a while. It's too easy and not rewarding (and fast) enough. First of all, you definitely need to split bosses statues weight so that hard bosses give bonus mightiness (twin eyes statues should be 2x mightiness, so should fw/celestial/toadstool at the very least). The bar should not get wider and easier to use with better statues, it should stay the same and have a very small spot that doubles the mightiness per push if hit correctly. If you miss that, you get the standard mightiness.  This would reward up to 4x mightiness for killing the harder bosses and paying attention to the minigame.

I also think the machine consumes a bit too much food.

Last but not least, it should be integrated to teamplay. Like another user said many pages ago, teammates could mount the station on the scales, you'd get max mightiness per tick for lifting them and they'd get something else (sanity or dmg multiplier?). So it would be like a team game that benefits everyone. I also think they should be able to use the station but they would only get 1.1x damage multiplier for a couple of minutes. Or they could get the 1.1x bonus if you lift them. To apply this 1.1x damage for teammates you could extend the pivoting bar to the other participants and only when they all hit the spot does the team get the bonuses. Wolfgang lifting statue + player or lifting two players. 

 

Just incorporate the station into teamplay somehow and provide meaningful bonuses to other players.

 

The dumbbells

 

As is, i think the dumbbells are fine, the purple one is quite strong really. I think that it should cost 2 purple gems and have double durability (and maybe a small might tick buff like 10-20%). I initially said you should add an even better one like a ruins pseudostation one with top gems, but that would make the workout station redundant.

I like that you can throw them but the radius is too small and the projectile speed too low.

 

The mighty system

Right now there is no incentive to stay anything but mighty if possible. There has been a lot of heated discussion on the speed loss. I still think that removing it altogether is a big mistake but i do see the argument that 2x fixed damage and speed makes fights too easy. One solution that engages might system manipulation is that Wolfgang gets his former 1.25x speed modifier FLAT but only when NOT mighty. This fixes the issue of mob and boss fights being trivial but also the severe nerf for his overall mobility. Players would look to cruise the threshold between mighty and normal so that they don't get too mighty, allowing them to fight then revert to normal and move at faster pace. This also makes sense because we know very strong men are not particularly fast.

 

I like how you included the legacy hunger system to influence mightiness but i think the thresholds are too high for mightiness penalties.

 

Other perks

 

The marble suit use is great. Piggyback is great. Moving heavy stuff is great but honestly it's still faster to just use the beefalo. Pretty much the other two chars that can move pieces (wanda and walter) are magnitudes better than Wolfgang. His speed at carrying heavy objects should be at the very least 1.5x the current one, i'd personally opt for 2x.

 

 

Character downsides

 

Wolfgang still does not have any real downsides. And no system that rewards good playstyle like wanda has (and why she's so nice to play). I'm not sure what his downsides should be, but i know at the very least that no character in any game can be both a tank and damage dealer. If Wolfgang is damage dealer, he should not have tank like hp. His hp should be lowered to 100-130 in my opinion.

 

As for Wimpy, Wimpy could be 1.5x speed or something but receive 5x damage and be completely useless in combat (maybe not even able to wear armor or swing weapons?), that would incentivize it's use, incentivize might manipulation to get in and out of it but also introduce a significant penalty.

[JoeW]

Just a reminder to keep things polite and on-topic. 

Discuss the topic constructively and without personal attacks towards other forum members or groups of players. Thanks. 

[CyberSkink]

3 minutes ago, JoeW said:

Just a reminder to keep things polite and on-topic. 

Discuss the topic constructively and without personal attacks towards other forum members or groups of players. Thanks. 

My apologies, JoeW.

[Orty97]

3 minutes ago, reallychina said:

Wolfgang still does not have any real downsides. And no system that rewards good playstyle like wanda has (and why she's so nice to play). I'm not sure what his downsides should be, but i know at the very least that no character in any game can be both a tank and damage dealer. If Worlfgang is damage dealer, he should not have tank like hp. His hp should be lowered to 100-130 in my opinion.

In my opinion this is the thing that will make or break the refresh. I would suggest whimpy having a much bigger influence on his playstyle. Right now you just do a few pumps and you've dealt with it. And it is still in Wolfgang's theme of muscle = power.

5 minutes ago, JoeW said:

Just a reminder to keep things polite and on-topic. 

Discuss the topic constructively and without personal attacks towards other forum members or groups of players. Thanks. 

I do apologize for getting a bit heated in my replies. 

[reallychina]

11 minutes ago, Orty97 said:

In my opinion this is the thing that will make or break the refresh. I would suggest whimpy having a much bigger influence on his playstyle. Right now you just do a few pumps and you've dealt with it. And it is still in Wolfgang's theme of muscle = power.

I agree. Wimpy could be 1.5x speed or something but receive 5x damage and be completely useless in combat (maybe not even able to wear armor or swing weapons?), that would incentivize it's use and also might manipulation to get in and out of it.

[JustExo]

I think the biggest thing to keep in mind is that we don't know who this rework is targeted at. I don't think people are particularly wrong, but they're looking at things from their own perspective, and how they play the game. People who don't mind a weaker early game are making the argument that this rework doesn't change Wolfgang in a significant way, while the people who value his incredibly early game are complaining that this rework just put an arbitrary wall up to hinder that playstyle. Overall I think what would help the conversation is klei talking about the thought process behind the changes, and people discussing whether or not the motivations behind them are worth balancing around, and what should be changed accordingly

 

[Orty97]

3 minutes ago, reallychina said:

I agree. Wimpy could be 1.5x speed or something maybe but take 5x damage and be useless in combat (maybe not even able to wear armor?), that would incentivize it's use and also might manipulation to get in and out of it.

I still don't understand why people think Wolfgang having extra speed in normal mode is bad. 
He has 1 main use now -> beat stuff up. What would moving faster  from place to place in normal mode with no extra damage would be so OP?
It solves the power creep that he was and it keeps the buff for people who enjoyed it (and i would say it's even better for just regular survival sim gameplay).

[BezKa]

7 minutes ago, JustExo said:

klei talking about the thought process behind the changes

I really hope for a stream when the rework comes out, with heavy moderating that is. 

[Orty97]

11 minutes ago, JustExo said:

I think the biggest thing to keep in mind is that we don't know who this rework is targeted at. I don't think people are particularly wrong, but they're looking at things from their own perspective, and how they play the game. People who don't mind a weaker early game are making the argument that this rework doesn't change Wolfgang in a significant way, while the people who value his incredibly early game are complaining that this rework just put an arbitrary wall up to hinder that playstyle. Overall I think what would help the conversation is klei talking about the thought process behind the changes, and people discussing whether or not the motivations behind them are worth balancing around, and what should be changed accordingly

 

I do agree knowing the reason behind the changes would settle up some arguments.

But he basically remained a solo style character. He has no incentive to play in a team. He just gets strong and beats stuff up. 
If they intend to keep it that way the nerfs are uncalled for. Why ballance a character arround something he doesn't even affect?
But if they want to add stuff like working out with friends at the gim, giving them buffs and such. Then i wouldn't even mind most of the changes.
Except how you maintain mightiness. That i still don't agree with. Maybe if you lose your mightiness or come from a battle or a mission you should get it back with the minigame. That just feels right. But to do it everytime you leave the base to have that, is just repetivive and at a certain point boring.

Shameless repetition of the ideea of him being able to juggle the dumbelss while at high mightiness just cuz i love the ideea of having to kite the boss, while you juggle your dbells! Add the quick time event there, that would be 100 times better!

As i said before, i know Klei will look at the feedback provided and find a solution to please most of us. We won't know for sure untill thursday i guess.

[JustExo]

Just now, Orty97 said:

But he basically remained a solo style character. He has no incentive to play in a team. He just gets strong and beats stuff up. 
If they intend to keep it that way the nerfs are uncalled for. Why ballance a character arround something he doesn't even affect?
But if they want to add stuff like working out with friends at the gim, giving them buffs and such. Then i wouldn't even mind most of the changes.
Except how you maintain mightiness. That i still don't agree with. Maybe if you lose your mightiness or come from a battle or a mission you should get it back with the minigame. That just feels right. But to do it everytime you leave the base to have that, is just repetivive and at a certain point boring.

Depending on what the intent behind the changes are, I can see the reasons why they would want to change the things they did. If they're targeting specifically people who rush things with wolfgang, then the changes make sense as to why they did it. The issue is; whether or not them balancing around those players should be the case, and why it should be the case. 

Just now, JustExo said:

Depending on what the intent behind the changes are, I can see the reasons why they would want to change the things they did. If they're targeting specifically people who rush things with wolfgang, then the changes make sense as to why they did it. The issue is; whether or not them balancing around those players should be the case, and why it should be the case. 

I personally don't think balancing around those people is a good idea since they don't really affect a majority of players from what I've seen since they just do things on their own and have fun playing the game the way they decide to.
In addition to that, I don't think the update adds much to the people who casually play this game, nor does it add much to people who know what they're doing with wolfgang, but choose not to rush bosses other than add a bit of tedium

[Orty97]

Just now, JustExo said:

Depending on what the intent behind the changes are, I can see the reasons why they would want to change the things they did. If they're targeting specifically people who rush things with wolfgang, then the changes make sense as to why they did it. The issue is; whether or not them balancing around those players should be the case, and why it should be the case. 

I don't get this point of view tho. This should be a refresh of the character. Therefore it should add to the appeal of playing him, not fix the possibility of some players getting some op stuff early on. From my point of view this refresh did this:

-remove 98% of his speed buff(he actually gained ~5% speed while using marble armor / pig bp)
-moved mightiness to a different stat that you raise by right clicking on an item and wait or doing a boring repetitive QTE.

And i don't think i missed anything really.
As i stated many  times before. The ideeas they came up with are GREAT! The way those ideeas are in the game as of now on the other hand not so great imo.

[JustExo]

What I was talking about with a few people in the don't starve together discord server is the character's utility over time, and likened it to this graph

the idea being that, Wanda (graph A) has a slow start, but her utility increases as time goes on to steadily outclass most other people who are oriented towards dealing damage. Wolfgang (graph B) slowly loses utility as strictly fighting bosses and enemies isn't really enough in the very late game in comparison to other characters who have different tools and uses. Wigfrid (graph C) has a pretty steady utility throughout the game with it either; rising or decreasing based on how useful her toolkit can be to those around her. 
What the rework does is lower the starting point of Wolfgang's utility to those who value that strong early game, which is what I think people take issue with. 

Just now, Orty97 said:

I don't get this point of view tho. This should be a refresh of the character. Therefore it should add to the appeal of playing him, not fix the possibility of some players getting some op stuff early on. From my point of view this refresh did this:

-remove 98% of his speed buff(he actually gained ~5% speed while using marble armor / pig bp)
-moved mightiness to a different stat that you raise by right clicking on an item and wait or doing a boring repetitive QTE.

And i don't think i missed anything really.
As i stated many  times before. The ideeas they came up with are GREAT! The way those ideeas are in the game as of now on the other hand not so great imo.

I definitely agree that the ideas implemented are good ones and from what I've seen, lots of people do like the concept, but it really is the execution of those ideas that people get caught up on

 

[Orty97]

3 minutes ago, JustExo said:

I definitely agree that the ideas implemented are good ones and from what I've seen, lots of people do like the concept, but it really is the execution of those ideas that people get caught up on

 

Well that is where this thread comes into play i guess. I didn't get the chance to help all that much with the ONI dlc beta and now i kinda feel the need to go out of my way with this thread just cuz from DST's roster, Wolfgang's "get stronk for big bonk" style gave me hundread of hours of fun. And i want other people to enjoy him as much as i did!

[reallychina]

10 minutes ago, JustExo said:

What the rework does is lower the starting point of Wolfgang's utility to those who value that strong early game, which is what I think people take issue with. 

 

 

 

Unfortunately the rework doesn't only lower Wolfgang's starting point of utility (i think it was called for, really). The starting point is most affected, but mid and late game take a hit too, particularly because of the speed nerf. Moving around the map is maybe 50% of game time, and it's all equally affected, be it day 20, 80 or 800. 

[JustExo]

2 minutes ago, reallychina said:

 

Unfortunately the rework doesn't only lower Wolfgang's starting point of utility (i think it was called for, really). The starting point is most affected, but mid and late game take a hit too, particularly because of the speed nerf. Moving around the map is maybe 50% of game time, and it's all affected, be it day 20, 80 or 800. 

Following the idea of the graph, lowering his starting point has echoing effects throughout the rest of the line, what I think should happen is make Wolfgang's utility over time increase, or remain somewhat constant