Wolfgang rework discussion (no rant, please, keep it constructive and laconical)

[Toroic]

@Pig Princess I think general speed boosts are powerful but boring and take up design space that could be better utilized.

Wormwood and Wx need to do specific actions unique to them to get a “stacks with everything” speed boost, Wolfgang just eats more which is the same action than everyone else, so it doesn’t make his gameplay any more unique.

I’d rather mighty form did 3x damage with no speed boost or Wolf gains more team utility if he needs buffing instead of adding speed back.

[lakhnish]

Wolfgang skipped leg day, that's why he lost his speed boost.

[Beeremy the III]

I'm not a Wolfgang enjoyer, before or after the rework.

Before the rework, he was a one dimensional fridge emptier who fought bosses. With his downsides being essentially ignorable (hunger drain was countered by the fact he can kill everything and get more food, and sanity drain is countered by the fact that being insane is usually only a benefit, especially with the amount of damage Wolfgang did.

At this time, he was probably the best solo character in DST, with the only one on his level being Wortox, due to his fast movement and easy healing.

I don't have any problem with him being really good as a character, but he was fundamentally boring. You eat a bunch of food, you run at the enemy, you hold f, if you have to kite it's much easier thanks to the 10% speed boost, and then the boss dies. He was just better Wilson, while every other character had something as a relevant downside that they would have to work around.

Wormwood has to really think about how he would heal, Warly has to eat a variety of crock pot dishes to not starve, Wendy has to make sure Abigail doesn't die (yeah yeah i get it she's already a ghost) since she's not good fighting alone, even Wilson has the beard that can screw him over in Summer.

New Wolfgang just seems like... Old Wolfgang. The only real difference being he gets a new weapon and has to GET RIPPED!!!!

He still has to eat a lot, he's still a boss destroyer, his speed boost has just been removed, his sanity downside has been made more noticable, and his health is now constant.

It seems like the devs wanted to make him more of a team based character, based off the sanity drain nullifying. My suggestions for how to do this would be that if Wolfgang was around 2 or more people (number can change but it should be at least 2 so wortox doesn't run around with him while he decimates everything for free might) his might meter would increase.

He could also do a little bit more damage when fighting with friends, as he finds strength in comrades. This could separate him from Wigfrid, another solo fighter who has team advantages, by turning Wolfgang into a team fighter who has some solo advantages such as rowing and carrying. It would also give them great synergy which is cool because synergy is cool.

I probably won't play Wolfgang before or after the rework. I've always found him very boring to play, and probably will still find him very boring to play unless the rework changes something.

You can consider this the official "Wolfgang is Stinky and Boring" post.

Next up will be Wickerbottom, coming when you least expect it, to a klei fourm thread near you. Or whoever gets their refresh next, I'm not picky.

TL;DR: wolfgang very boring >:(

[HowlVoid]

5 hours ago, ArubaroBeefalo said:

yes, i was refering to that but the thing is that the complains didnt come because wendy could be far away watching abigail destroying things because of her 80 damage but because klei nerfed abi's damage when wendy was full which for some people it was a nerf (they didnt took into account all the controll and elixirs that the refresh bring or that at 70%hp you get more than the old damage...)

maybe klei finally decided the change because of the thing you are mentioning or for both but the thing is that they removed all the work they did when it wasnt bad (actually very funny and i wish we get another glass cannon character based on having a follower linked to our hp)

The reason for the Wendy change was because Klei wanted the sisters to work together and what they saw was people lowering Wendy's hp and watching abi kill things from afar.

Quote

or how they nerfed the second chance watch because people that didnt played the character were focused on how op was reviving every 2 minutes (what an interesting obituaries) when red gems are already a easy to farm thing and the real problem was her weapon breaking AIs (but to know that they would need to play the character..)

klei listen because they cant play the game for enough time to test things but sometimes they listen to players who also didnt tested the things but are biased and boring enough to repeat the same unuseful feedback over and over

The reviving watch was broken because Wanda could make tons of them and scatter them across the floor. The way it works now requires Wanda to be around to revive other players and Wanda herself breaks it, it's more inline to other revival items. 

[Echsrick]

i mean, i guess it was expected for wolfgang to get his own crafting tap at some point, but then its sounds like carneval mini games or something like that? i alsol think that wolfgang starts whit a dumbell at spawn, since i dit read thats like some sort of portable work out thing, and i think it would make most sense,  if wolfgang has 1 of these at start

[Mangrove]

I think pre-rework Wolfgang is one of the more fun characters, not boring at all! His speed / high mobility made fighting a lot of fun with a lot of dancing.

I think mini-games get boring real fast.

[Mike23Ua]

41 minutes ago, Mangrove said:

I think mini-games get boring real fast.

It depends on how the mini game works.. I’m predicting one of two things- 

1- you press A and then A again at the right timing at a Test your Strength Strongman’s meter by grabbing a Mallet and seeing how “Mighty” you are.

2- You repeatedly tap A to punch a punching Bag and the more times your able to punch before the short Mini-Game ends… the more Strength you will get.

Now do keep this in mind: The BIGTOP Skin collection is strictly all from Wolfgang’s Circus.

K that’s all I wanted to add, proof can be found in his new Teaser Image.

[Cr4zyFl4mes]

"keep it laconic"... proceeds to make extremely long post xDD

[Pig Princess]

2 hours ago, Cr4zyFl4mes said:

"keep it laconic"... proceeds to make extremely long post xDD

I meant as much laconic as possible while preserving key points of one's post. High constructive information/words ratio, in other words.

As for the topic:

13 hours ago, Pig Princess said:

My suggestions don't cover following aspects:

13 hours ago, Pig Princess said:

- Introducing alternative way to gain mightiness. Right now I think food is too easy (imagine converting carrots into weapon and armor durability as it is now), but the whole gym kit seems unnecessary way and something Wolfgaing player will need to go out of their way in 100% cases (no merm king feeding, please).

13 hours ago, Pig Princess said:

Help for team

Mightiness could be not tied to hunger directly, but rather to ratio of hunger(health) points restored/damage dealt, numbers can be adjusted. Idea is to gain the most amount of mightiness (it's own separate meter) by dealing right amount of damage/work (like mining or hammering) after eating during short period of time, but if consumed hunger/health points were too much compared to damage/work, mightiness decreases, if around optimal number - increases slowly, very close to optimal number - increases rapidly, too much damage/work and little to no food - stays the same as before. Hunger points could imply a need to deal more total damage during time period for optimal mightiness gain, health points - less total amount of damage.

Keeping mightiness drain rate dependent on hunger like in official announcement could also be a thing.

Example of how it could work: for gaining mightiness quickly one would need to prioritize health-restoring dishes/food, especially with low-damage weapon like spear (especially starting in wimpy form), for cases when one can afford to do multiple hits (especially with good weapon) before becoming mighty it would be better to use hunger-restoring food (because more hunger points in the stomach -> less mightiness depletion). So in the end Wolfgang players diet should be shifted to the health-restoring dishes rather than hunger-restoring for mightiness, preferably without excessive amount of hunger poins, and playstyle to punishing idling and encouraging fighting/work even further.

Seems complicated on paper but it really shouldn't be on practice. As for team-helping perk Wolfgang in full mightiness could gain ability to knock back regular mobs and push giants with swings away on the edge of melee weapon range (I could see it useful for CC phase 3 fight, Fuelweaver and Toadstool). Work effectiveness in the presence of mighty Wolfgang could also increase for all nearby players and entities (and stack with honey spice).

[Cookie95]

I know most won't agree with me but since getting mighty is gonna require more time and effort now, I would be a lot happier if his wimpy form were to be completely removed. Having just normal and mighty forms would work fine and if the mightiness meter works as I think it will being forced into wimpy form seems unfair and punishing.

And please don't go on about how he needs this downside to be "balanced" when there are strong characters with practically no downsides. His speed boost removal, lower stats, harder time becoming mighty, increased sanity drain (good addition) and hunger drain are enough.

[firoborn]

the positive side of this is now we know that klei also makes changes to please the ppl that hate a character perhaps we will think twice about wantig refreshes for wicker or WX

[Mike23Ua]

23 minutes ago, Cookie95 said:

I know most won't agree with me but since getting mighty is gonna require more time and effort now, I would be a lot happier if his wimpy form were to be completely removed. Having just normal and mighty forms would work fine and if the mightiness meter works as I think it will being forced into wimpy form seems unfair and punishing.

And please don't go on about how he needs this downside to be "balanced" when there are strong characters with practically no downsides. His speed boost removal, lower stats, harder time becoming mighty, increased sanity drain (good addition) and hunger drain are enough.

I can agree with this, I was hoping “Wimpy” would be removed from the game altogether in favor of making normal form & mighty his only forms- All other reworks up to this point have been about making characters more fun, less frustrating.. and a almost completely avoidable downside- So to see things like “gets hot and cold faster in Wimpy form” just seems like an unnecessary additional downside to him.

When what SHOULD have happened is just make being his OP heavy hitting self even more OP and heavy hitting.. but make him actually have to Work to accomplish it.

Im really quite confused why he got hit with as many nerfs as he did- BUT…. We don’t know what all they changed about him- so I’ll reserve my judgement of that for this Thursday..

Personally can’t wait- I would LOVE to play the games strongest man and actually feel like I’m the most Mighty.. but I want to EARN that Mighty so it feels rewarding to be that Powerful.

[SecretPizzaMan]

10 hours ago, Beeremy the III said:

I'm not a Wolfgang enjoyer, before or after the rework.

Before the rework, he was a one dimensional fridge emptier who fought bosses. With his downsides being essentially ignorable (hunger drain was countered by the fact he can kill everything and get more food, and sanity drain is countered by the fact that being insane is usually only a benefit, especially with the amount of damage Wolfgang did.

At this time, he was probably the best solo character in DST, with the only one on his level being Wortox, due to his fast movement and easy healing.

I don't have any problem with him being really good as a character, but he was fundamentally boring. You eat a bunch of food, you run at the enemy, you hold f, if you have to kite it's much easier thanks to the 10% speed boost, and then the boss dies. He was just better Wilson, while every other character had something as a relevant downside that they would have to work around.

Wormwood has to really think about how he would heal, Warly has to eat a variety of crock pot dishes to not starve, Wendy has to make sure Abigail doesn't die (yeah yeah i get it she's already a ghost) since she's not good fighting alone, even Wilson has the beard that can screw him over in Summer.

New Wolfgang just seems like... Old Wolfgang. The only real difference being he gets a new weapon and has to GET RIPPED!!!!

He still has to eat a lot, he's still a boss destroyer, his speed boost has just been removed, his sanity downside has been made more noticable, and his health is now constant.

It seems like the devs wanted to make him more of a team based character, based off the sanity drain nullifying. My suggestions for how to do this would be that if Wolfgang was around 2 or more people (number can change but it should be at least 2 so wortox doesn't run around with him while he decimates everything for free might) his might meter would increase.

He could also do a little bit more damage when fighting with friends, as he finds strength in comrades. This could separate him from Wigfrid, another solo fighter who has team advantages, by turning Wolfgang into a team fighter who has some solo advantages such as rowing and carrying. It would also give them great synergy which is cool because synergy is cool.

I probably won't play Wolfgang before or after the rework. I've always found him very boring to play, and probably will still find him very boring to play unless the rework changes something.

You can consider this the official "Wolfgang is Stinky and Boring" post.

Next up will be Wickerbottom, coming when you least expect it, to a klei fourm thread near you. Or whoever gets their refresh next, I'm not picky.

TL;DR: wolfgang very boring >:(

No not Wickerbottom. Leave them alone you scoundrel.

[Owlrust]

Honestly I don't really think that his new weakness to the elements when wimpy downside is quite necessary, mainly since it doesn't really make sense for a wimpy character and only takes away from the simplicity of his newfound design; a better downside would be something more impactful to his fears outside of just a 25% penalty that fluctuates. Perhaps something like "gets swept away by the wind sometimes" or "more vulnerable to knockbacks" to play into the wimpy aspect.

Wimpy form Wolfgang should have some benefits at least in some fashion (yes I understand it's a downside, but that doesn't necessarily mean it should be something completely avoided either). So far here's what I got, mostly just statistical changes but still useful for a scrawny form like Wes:

Spoiler

• Wimpy Wolfgang runs with extra movement speed based on how low his Might is (light as a feather)
• Weapons and tools take longer to break (same way it works for Wes)
• Slower hunger drain

 

[Gi-Go]

Ok so here is my feedback:  

First thing I want to get out of the way is - Wolfgang NEEDS his speed bonus back. Rework is fine as is even if it could use some improvements, but the speed boost removal is just no good. With all the features added Wolfgang is still very basic and narrow character. He hits hard and that's all he does. 

Cheapest speed boost could be his second selling point. As objective the damage boost is, noone will deny they want to move faster regardless of their playstyle and goals. 

Would that be overpowered or illogical? Not really. Wes and wormwood have cheap speed boosts, Wanda can travel anywhere in an instant, and that's just a tiny bit of their perks. There was debate on whether or not moving faster while being mighty makes sence, but what does it matter when a plant walks faster from blooming in this universe? 

The might meter is a great change I enjoyed it. Minigame is very easy and that's good since noone wants nerfs. Dumbbells are fairly cheap altho I guess I'll have to carry one forever loosing inventory slot. Either way it's great that the stats are consistent now, the best exsample of how this impacts the game would be tentacle spikes dealing 102 damage which is barely enough to one shot fragile mobs and thus were hard to manage before but not anymore so yay. I do wanna note I'd rather have might meter below sanity and without eye irritating red background when I'm whimpy. I get that it's a visual hint that being weak is bad but I can kinda figure it out without a hint and the red glow is just a tiny bit irritating.

Workout machine has a special item on it but you can't smash it with hammer. Would be nice if It gave you potatoes from nowhere or at the very least rocks. I like using unusual methods to get resources, such as digging berry bushes twice to get sticks but noone else probably cares. 

From a creativity standpoint it's a bit disappointing how other forms have absolutely no purpose to them, meaning they don't exist from a player point of view. 

Speaking of, I always loved whimpy Wolfgang because I'm a Wes main, so it's nice that I don't have to starve myself to death to be skinny anymore. I do wish his damage was redused to 0.5 like before instead current  0.75. I'm definitely gonna play Wolfgang in weak form only for lolz and would like to be as pathetic as possble, thanks. 

Wolfgang dosen't get speed penalty from marble armor and piggy back. Very nice even if it's not gonna make a big game change. New possibilities are always great. Same with heavy objects it's niche but good. 

Now... the throwing weapons. Like any other range weapons in this game the dumbbells suck. It's because of the low damage. I'm not sure why klei insists on keeping things in a 27, 34 and 51 value. Makes sence for melee but these are range weapons. They are consumable and slow. The least they can do is pack a punch. Also, for a murder machine these values are extra awful. Not sure about blowdarts but throwing things as a strongman should definetly make projectiles hit hard. I'd prefer values above 100. come on klei, noone hunts birds and rabbits the 27 damage dumbbells are a joke. 

Lastly I wanna talk about charcater interaction. Seems like ever since Winona klei have been avoiding access to character perks for everyone else. I don't agree with that decision. The reason why Winona is not played isn't because she is swappable due to everyone being able to use her catapults. It's because catapults have a very narrow use and she is nothing without them. Noone can use dumbbells, noone can use working out. Just dosen't feel right. 

A good exsample of character exclusive items is Willow. Her bear can protect everyone from shadows but he will fight back only for her. Everyone can use lighters but only she can cook food on them (that's a lie). I'm sure Wilson could throw dumbbells too why the heck not. The current dumbbells are good enough for sidekicks while Wolfgang could do proper damage with them and throw further? And the workout machine could give a tiny damage buff for a while honestly why not? 

Okay that's about it I think, mainly I just want speedboost back so I would actually pick Wolfgang outside of purge or boss rush. 

 

 

EDIT: I wrote this right after testing rework and was a bit too happy and excited. Ended up saying a bunch of unnecessary junk.

 

Here is TLD: Wolfgang needs speed boost, dumbbells need major damage buff. 

[HowlVoid]

At the moment the normal dumbbell does not seem worth it, other than to speed to the golden one.

Using them as weapons is conceptually cool but not a sound strategy as they require stone and you need them to keep yourself from turning wimpy (the cutstone and purple gem are especially hard to come by early game in large amounts, don't throw it!). Well maybe if you're trying to get rid of a low percent dumbbell. 

Being caught without dumbbell and turning Wimpy is a HARD punish, especially in winter. You better keep a stash of stones nearby and get ready to mine a lot with 0 resource gathering perks. As stone becomes progressively hard to acquire passively late game, well good luck with that (plant for a forest nearby and wait for it to petrify or have a fling-o turn larvae to stone). 

The mini-game needs to be removed imo, you'll have to go throught it hundreds of time because you'll want to save the dumbbells for on the go. Even if it takes seconds it will get repetitive. 

Because turning Wimpy is only a punishment you'll always want to avoid it, so you'll always pay attention to the meter, similar to Wanda's clock. Although unlike Wanda, you won't be a able to quickly recover.

Why did using Wolfgang become work...

[Gi-Go]

I don't get why people who didn't care about Wolfgang before his rework, and won't care about him after, still decided to leave a bunch of objectively wrong opinions. Feedback is a useless mess now. You don't play this charcater, how about leave feedback to someone who actually cares about him? I never gave suggestions to webber rework cuz I personally find him boring and would rather leave it to people who are into spiders. 

I swear it feels like klei forums have vendetta against Wolfgang and Wiker mains. 

[Dextops]

1 minute ago, Gi-Go said:

I don't get why people who didn't care about Wolfgang before his rework, and won't care about him after, still decided to leave a bunch of objectively wrong opinions. Feedback is a useless mess now. You don't play this charcater, how about leave feedback to someone who actually cares about him? I never gave suggestions to webber rework cuz I personally find him boring and would rather leave it to people who are into spiders. 

I swear it feels like klei forums have vendetta against Wolfgang and Wiker mains. 

most people giving criticism and being disappointed are people who like wolfgang and people who wanted to be able to have fun playing wolfgang i don't see where this claim is coming from

[Gi-Go]

15 minutes ago, Dextops said:

most people giving criticism and being disappointed are people who like wolfgang and people who wanted to be able to have fun playing wolfgang i don't see where this claim is coming from

ArubaroBeffalo is the main offender. For someone who said multiple times he never plays Wolfgang and strongly dislikes him, he sure left a lot of replies here. And their main point is to praise klei for removing Wolfgang's speed (that's half of his relevant perks mind you). 

As a Wolfgang enthusiast I find that to be extremely frustrating and damaging. I'm worried I'm gonna be left unhappy with the rework, because of someone who wouldn't care either way. 

[sudoku]

While some are mourning the speed boost loss, my main gripe is the minigame. One of the reasons i hate them in the lunar and summer events is that the servers become way less productive/engaging when you have everyone sitting around in base playing minigames until they finally get bored. I understand some people might enjoy them so I largely just stay quiet until those events end.

But now, a characters main perk, the thing that determines a characters playstyle and helps introduce/switch up gameplay, is a minigame?! Really? How does this benefit the player or their team who most likely, outside of a few hardcore roleplayers, would much rather prefer them to be doing anything else in the game other than standing stationary and in their own little minigame world, nevermind the tediousness it will become.

Now they probably dont have to remove it completely. But they need to do a 180 on how he gains mightyness, and i am aware he can use dumbells but, again i am not a fan of "gameplay" that entirely consists of standing still watching your character.

My suggestion is to have a craftable protien shake-like consumable, maybe the crafting recipe includes potatos, and once you drink it a timer appears similiar to when you eat spiced dishes, and any physical activity you do within the time limit fills up your mighty meter. Physcial activity would include mining/chopping/hauling/rowing/fighting, basically the stuff you and your team want you to be doing instead of sitting idle playing a minigame. 

So not only does it give the player the incentive to do these activities, allows players more freedom on managing mighty form during boss fights, buffs Warly honey spice, it also is extrememly more engaging.

[Gi-Go]

9 minutes ago, sudoku said:

While some are mourning the speed boost loss, my main gripe is the minigame. One of the reasons i hate them in the lunar and summer events is that the servers become way less productive/engaging when you have everyone sitting around in base playing minigames until they finally get bored. I understand some people might enjoy them so I largely just stay quiet until those events end.

Have you even seen the mini game before commenting this? It's a rhythm game. Very simple, very fast and yet the most fun mini game dst ever had. I'm honestly blown away by how good of a mini game klei made this time. Purple dumbbell gives rapid gain, gold one is cheap and both are easily portable. The machine is free and effective. This IS engaging, what more do you want? 

[sudoku]

1 minute ago, Gi-Go said:

Have you even seen the mini game before commenting this? It's a rhythm game. Very simple, very fast and yet the most fun mini game dst ever had. I'm honestly blown away by how good of a mini game klei made this time. Purple dumbbell gives rapid gain, gold one is cheap and both are easily portable. The machine is free and effective. This IS engaging, what more do you want? 

Yes i have seen the mini game. And my point still stands. Would i prefer my Wolfgang teamate to be sitting at base and stationary or would i prefer him to be clearing spiders/mining/chopping, literally anything that contributes to the overall gameplay flow? The answer is obvious imo.

[Gi-Go]

9 minutes ago, sudoku said:

Yes i have seen the mini game. And my point still stands. Would i prefer my Wolfgang teamate to be sitting at base and stationary or would i prefer him to be clearing spiders/mining/chopping, literally anything that contributes to the overall gameplay flow? The answer is obvious imo.

Your point is none. 20 seconds of workout is nothing compared to time wolfgangs used before to get food for sustaining themselves. We are talking double damage buff and you are unhappy it takes a few seconds to get it for free? 

[-Nick-]

6 hours ago, firoborn said:

think twice about wantig refreshes for wicker or WX

WX-78 definitely needs a refresh. Ironically, WX-78 is severely outdated in mechanics and game balance. WX-78 definitely needs a software update.

[sudoku]

4 minutes ago, Gi-Go said:

Your point is none.

Okay, thanks for letting me know! Id love to hear your ideas for WX rework! How about instead of collecting gears, that requires you to fight monsters who wants to do that lol icky, we play an awsome fun minigame and at the end we get the stat boost! And instead of having Wicker charge us with her book, how about we play another cool minigame, but it wont be the same it will be the most fun minigame klei will ever make!