[Poll] On Powercreep in DST

[hhh2]

12 hours ago, EssZee said:

Does it still count as ‘powercreep’ when arguably better items arise due to the level of player progression in the game? For example, a backpack vs a krampus sack. The former is objectively better, but the latter comes through a much greater amount of gameplay. I don’t hear the term much so I’m curious to see if what I said counts under its definition

nah dude that's just game progression, poor example too since the krampus sack doesnt represent progression as much as it represents "holy crap" luck. A better comparision would be spear to darksword since spear is avalible with teir 1 science while darksword is more of a time investment requiring tier 2 magic to even craft.

What I'd consider powercreep to be are the newer characters like wortox and wanda (who i think are fun and should remain as they are) and maybe the new hat from EoC (infinate football hat . _.).

6 hours ago, Cheggf said:

Look at the DSA characters and compare them to DST

Idk, have you seen wagstaff in singleplayer? I think it's more of a time thing and Klei is becoming a little more experimental with the character abilities, which obviously would have some bring balance into question.

[Cheggf]

9 hours ago, ArubaroBeefalo said:

because they dont step on each other

for example, they added bone armor but it doesnt make other armor useless, they added the CC crown which doesnt make moggles or miner hat useless, glass cutters doesnt make dark sworks useless, etc etc etc

And, if given the option, when would someone ever choose to play the pre-reworked version of a character (other than Wolfgang)? If there's no power creep then why do so many people argue that Wilson needs a rework because he's fallen behind and is a useless character? He's the first character, so if there's no powercreep, then clearly he should still be as good as all the rest, right? But he isn't as good as everyone else. He's the best for learning the game, but for actually accomplishing things other than that he's fallen behind. Newer characters and character reworks are always huge steps up from Wilson and usually without many, if any, downsides or difficulties in playing.

7 hours ago, Shosuko said:

the game now, why are Wanda's not flooding every server? 

The strongest combat character already is flooding every server.

4 hours ago, hhh2 said:

Idk, have you seen wagstaff in singleplayer?

The character released after DST?

[Theukon-dos]

9 hours ago, Shosuko said:

I think its because player skill and choice are still bigger factors in the game then general power level.  With Wanda being clearly the strongest combat character in the game now, why are Wanda's not flooding every server?  Because utilizing her powers requires you have a certain level of skill in the game, a desire to meet combat challenges head on, and a willingness to part with preferred flavor for pure power.  If all 3 boxes aren't checked, you're probably not going to play her.

I'd say it's probably because she costs money. I feel like Wanda would be really popular amongst new players if she was free. I mean, she spawns with a free, indefinitely reusable healing item.

 

Anyways, I think that "Powercreep" is a weird term to define. In this case, it's mostly because where does one draw the line between "Powercreep" and "Buffing features that were underpowered?"

 

In general, I think most of the content that Klei's been adding has actually been rather under powered. Particularly with ocean/lunar content. Most of it only does what things on the mainland can already do (Particularly food), So you're really only left with a couple things that can be easily seen as worth sailing for. And the new crop system is undoubtebly powerful, but crop plots where completely useless pre RWYS, so this isn't power creep, it's just buffing something that desperately needs it.

 

However, there is one place where I consider Power Creep to be rather prominent, and that is with Character refreshes. Or atleast half of them. Klei tends to be rather inconsistent when it comes to the refreshes.

 

>Willow has no practical downside, nothing to do with fire, and is the best nightmare fuel farmer in the game.

>Woodie turned from a dedicated harvester to a harvester, scouter, and bruiser (yet still manages to be underpowered)

>Winona has become the crème de la crème of Pick & swap characters, being able to demolish any boss with a bit of prep; yet once that prep's done, you can play anyone.

>Wendy gets a 40% damage boost from Wendy, making her hit harder than default despite the fact that her downside is supposed to be the fact that she doesn't hit as hard. Not to mention that you keep the damage buff but loose the damage reduction while riding beefalo; thus making her one of the best fighters in the game.

 

I know that these characters were underpowered before. And that I said buffing underpowered things isn't power creep. But god damn, this is a bit silly. 

 

Wortox is also incredibly powerful, as is Wanda. But I give her a pass because she's just the best designed characters in the game.

[Ohan]

28 minutes ago, Theukon-dos said:

Willow has no practical downside, nothing to do with fire, and is the best nightmare fuel farmer in the game.

Have you seen Wanda in action? i don’t think anyone can come close to Wanda with  bone helm on a boat holding F with alarming clock while blindfolded . Or even just Wanda staying insane by eating raw meat for every meal and holding F on crawling horrors.

You don’t need Bernie to distract nightmares if they just die before they can get anywhere near attacking range. 

AC is the epitome of power creep in the way it invalidates every single other weapon in the game. It’s just plain better than everything else. Luckily(?) it’s restricted to just 1 character or everyone would just be walking around with an AC lol. 

[ArubaroBeefalo]

5 hours ago, Cheggf said:

The strongest combat character already is flooding every server.

i though wolfgang had low popularity

5 hours ago, Cheggf said:

And, if given the option, when would someone ever choose to play the pre-reworked version of a character (other than Wolfgang)? If there's no power creep then why do so many people argue that Wilson needs a rework because he's fallen behind and is a useless character? He's the first character, so if there's no powercreep, then clearly he should still be as good as all the rest, right? But he isn't as good as everyone else. He's the best for learning the game, but for actually accomplishing things other than that he's fallen behind. Newer characters and character reworks are always huge steps up from Wilson and usually without many, if any, downsides or difficulties in playing.

maybe is me that i dont know thee exact definition of powercreep but as google told me is content that makes old content useless. Wilson isnt useless

as i said any character rework or new item steps on any other character or old item. Releasing wanda doesn't make maxwell, wx or wilson useless, atmost you can argue that she look much more modern

klei should increase the difficulty to compensate what you said

[W0l0l0]

When it comes to items, Klei is excellent at avoiding power creep. New items, especially boss loot tend to be sidegrades or unique in their design that makes them useful but not displacing other items usefulness. I used to praise Klei about the dark sword being the best weapon since its very inception.

The obvious exception is the Alarming Clock. This thing bums me out. I love the mechanics behind Wanda, and I am happy there is a viable whip weapon, but it's obvious this thing blows everything else out of the water for no real reason. Was Wanda underpowered with a dark sword? Feels like a really unnecessary item.

Character reworks are a whole other can of worms. They clearly have been getting more powerful, but I don't generally have too much of a problem with it. I hate how trivial certain parts of the game can be now but I don't find it too harmful to the game provided each character is at least roughly balanced.

Overall, as long as Klei is making efforts to make every item useful/viable, avoids trivialising game aspects without proper downsides, and keeps each character approximately balanced, they're doing a decent job. 

[ArubaroBeefalo]

1 hour ago, Theukon-dos said:

>Willow has no practical downside, nothing to do with fire, and is the best nightmare fuel farmer in the game.

i usually see this but i never understood how having wilson damage and a bear with low dps beats wolfgang and wanda?

[Cheggf]

29 minutes ago, ArubaroBeefalo said:

maybe is me that i dont know thee exact definition of powercreep but as google told me is content that makes old content useless. Wilson isnt useless

Wilson isn't completely useless, he's the best character for learning the game because he has so little. But if there was a tournament where the fastest team to accomplish a certain goal is given a cash prize there wouldn't be anyone picking Wilson, because he doesn't really do much. Once you know how to play the rest of the roster is a lot more powerful than him. Similarly, if that prize-driven contest also had a mod where you could pick characters either before their rework or after it, in every single case except for Wolfgang I don't think you'd see anyone picking the pre-reworked characters because once again the newer ones are a lot more powerful.

The characters' power is going up and up, and it's been happening over the course of many years. This is the single best example of powercreep I can think of. It's in a PvE game where character choice is a combination of how much fun you have with them, how hard you want the game to be, etc, and most of the characters are free, so it's not inherently a bad thing, but it's definitely here.

[ArubaroBeefalo]

Just now, Cheggf said:

But if there was a tournament

but there isnt. This isnt a competitive game and comparing characters like if it was is dumb because even not having perks or being weak are reasons to pick a character

There is different power level in different tasks and some has 0 (wilson) or negative (wes) power to bring variety in difficulty or to make certain task easier

Comparing old characters with their reworked version is also dumb because making them more powerful or confortable to use is the goal of character refresh and even if we compare them there will be a reason to pick old wendy over the new one, for example for people who complain that wendy is so powerful or miss the old creepy mechanics 

[Cheggf]

5 minutes ago, ArubaroBeefalo said:

but there isnt. This isnt a competitive game and comparing characters like if it was is dumb because even not having perks or being weak are reasons to pick a character

There is different power level in different tasks and some has 0 (wilson) or negative (wes) power to bring variety in difficulty or to make certain task easier

Comparing old characters with their reworked version is also dumb because making them more powerful or confortable to use is the goal of character refresh and even if we compare them there will be a reason to pick old wendy over the new one, for example for people who complain that wendy is so powerful or miss the old creepy mechanics 

Read the last paragraph of my post.

[Yuuko]

5 hours ago, Cheggf said:

And, if given the option, when would someone ever choose to play the pre-reworked version of a character (other than Wolfgang)?

Isn't that the point of the refreshes?  To make the character more playable, more thematic, and give the user more fun?  I'd say it would be a real failure of a refresh that leaves its old version looking appealing (still don't know wtf Klei was thinking with Woflgang like srs)

[Cheggf]

29 minutes ago, Shosuko said:

Isn't that the point of the refreshes?  To make the character more playable, more thematic, and give the user more fun?  I'd say it would be a real failure of a refresh that leaves its old version looking appealing (still don't know wtf Klei was thinking with Woflgang like srs)

The point of the refreshes is power creep, yes. It doesn't have to be a strictly bad thing. It's an uncompetitive pve sandbox so if someone doesn't like the power creep they can just not engage with it. Wes can ignore his rework almost entirely by just not making balloons, for example.

[ArubaroBeefalo]

7 minutes ago, Cheggf said:

The point of the refreshes is power creep

wolfgang disagrees xD

powercreep in refreshes is a side effect not the point imo

[Cheggf]

1 minute ago, ArubaroBeefalo said:

wolfgang disagrees xD

powercreep in refreshes is a side effect not the point imo

Wolfgang is the odd one out, the only character to ever get nerfed in his refresh (for whatever weird reason). People have been complaining about his rework non-stop since it came out even to this very day, which is a testament to how different it is.

[EssZee]

1 hour ago, ArubaroBeefalo said:

wolfgang disagrees xD

powercreep in refreshes is a side effect not the point imo

I agree with that. Reworks generally (seem to) aim to make characters more interesting, and/or team oriented. Wolf's rework as a recent example added some complexity to his banal playstyle. Wes, Webber and Wig's did the same, while also adding some team oriented perks. Wes' shareable balloons, Webber's den deco, Wig's songs etc. The point of refreshes isn't necessarily to powercreep imo.

[ArubaroBeefalo]

3 minutes ago, EssZee said:

I agree with that. Reworks generally (seem to) aim to make characters more interesting, and/or team oriented. Wolf's rework as a recent example added some complexity to his banal playstyle. Wes, Webber and Wig's did the same, while also adding some team oriented perks. Wes' shareable balloons, Webber's den deco, Wig's songs etc. The point of refreshes isn't necessarily to powercreep imo.

and wes was actually nerfed even if few people think that getting useless balloons is a buff in exchange of reduced stats, resistance and working efficiency

[EssZee]

2 minutes ago, ArubaroBeefalo said:

and wes was actually nerfed even if few people think that getting useless balloons is a buff in exchange of reduced stats, resistance and working efficiency

wicker was too if you can even count that as a refresh lol

[ArubaroBeefalo]

Just now, EssZee said:

wicker was too if you can even count that as a refresh lol

that, imo, was just revisiting old content that needed an ajustment because of a big mechanical change, like how they also nerfed bunnymens. I actually hope that klei will buff wicker in her refresh 

[EssZee]

4 minutes ago, ArubaroBeefalo said:

that, imo, was just revisiting old content that needed an ajustment because of a big mechanical change, like how they also nerfed bunnymens. I actually hope that klei will buff wicker in her refresh 

same here. she doesn’t need it as nearly as much as someone like Waxwell, but I hope that she gets a good look taken at her 

[Theukon-dos]

8 hours ago, Ohan said:

Have you seen Wanda in action? i don’t think anyone can come close to Wanda with  bone helm on a boat holding F with alarming clock while blindfolded . Or even just Wanda staying insane by eating raw meat for every meal and holding F on crawling horrors.

You don’t need Bernie to distract nightmares if they just die before they can get anywhere near attacking range. 

AC is the epitome of power creep in the way it invalidates every single other weapon in the game. It’s just plain better than everything else. Luckily(?) it’s restricted to just 1 character or everyone would just be walking around with an AC lol. 

1. I admit I forgot about Wanda, though in my experience, though Willow was the best fuel farmer for a time. despite having no reason to be.

2. The Alarming Clock is not powercreep. It is without a doubt powerful, but it's not powercreep. And this is for a few reasons.

For starters, as you said, the clock is Wanda-exclusive. And this is important because, for all intents and purposes, this is what the game designers wanted. It's basically how they chose to give Wanda a damage multiplier without giving her a damage multiplier. For reference, the Alarming clock while young deals 1.2x damage of a dark sword. Meaning that Wigfrid with a Dark Sword will be hitting harder than a Wanda. This goes upto 1.44x darksword damage while middle-aged, and 2.1x damage when old. Just barely beating out Wolfgang in terms of Damage Per Hit, though I do belive the Alarming slightly slower than other weapons; thus making their DPS about equal. 

And second, while the weapon is powerful, It's not the end-all be-all for the weapon because again, Wanda's designed to be using that weapon. Other characters wouldn't get the damage boost that comes with low health (That perk is tied to Wanda herself, as seen with other magic items), and while it would be a go-to weapon, other weapons would still have utility that makes them useful.

 

>Weather Pain would deal rapid AOE damage, and can still destroy objects

>Morningstar out-damages the Alarming clock against wet targets.

>Sheild of Terror provides damage protection, allowing you to use non-protecting body and head gear.

>The Batbat can heal the player

So no. The Alarming clock is not powercreep, and it would only be mild powercreep if everyone else could use it too.

[Baark0]

oh boy another balance thread about survival sandbox game

it's not so much thing that have come out have just been stronger, but klei's given us more options to complete the same tasks. for instance, if you need veggies, before you'd need a bunny farm, nowadays you have kelp, stone fruit, and farms since those dont suck anymore.

[abrocator]

4 hours ago, EssZee said:

Wolf's rework as a recent example added some complexity to his banal playstyle.

Having a gimmick that relies on one of the three core stats is not banal; it has an elegant simplicity to it.  The Wolfgang rework on the other hand is an example of inelegant complexity: a character-specific stat that’s just there to accomplish the overall design of “Wolfgang with an extra step”.

If Old Wolfgang was too easy then they could have just increased Mighty Wolfgang’s hunger drain.  They could also have given him a more interesting downside, like a Wolfgang-specifc nightmare creature which only appears when he’s been very insane for a day.  The nightmare creature could look like a buff (mighty) insect.  And of course it would hit hard and be hard to kill.  (Instead we got the banal downside of more sanity drain at night.)

Standing still/playing a mind-numbingly simplistic dance-timing minigame is not good game mechanic design.

[EssZee]

15 minutes ago, abrocator said:

Having a gimmick that relies on one of the three core stats is not banal; it has an elegant simplicity to it.  The Wolfgang rework on the other hand is an example of inelegant complexity: a character-specific stat that’s just there to accomplish the overall design of “Wolfgang with an extra step”.

If Old Wolfgang was too easy then they could have just increased Mighty Wolfgang’s hunger drain.  They could also have given him a more interesting downside, like a Wolfgang-specifc nightmare creature which only appears when he’s been very insane for a day.  The nightmare creature could look like a buff (mighty) insect.  And of course it would hit hard and be hard to kill.  (Instead we got the banal downside of more sanity drain at night.)

Standing still/playing a mind-numbingly simplistic dance-timing minigame is not good game mechanic design.

I still nonetheless find his rework as a whole to have made him a more interesting character. Having a gimmick rely on a trait isn’t inherently banal, but when it’s the only noticeable trait of said character, their play style becomes monotonous. While I do agree that they could’ve handled it better, I still prefer post rework wolfgang

[Cheggf]

1 hour ago, abrocator said:

Having a gimmick that relies on one of the three core stats is not banal; it has an elegant simplicity to it.  The Wolfgang rework on the other hand is an example of inelegant complexity: a character-specific stat that’s just there to accomplish the overall design of “Wolfgang with an extra step”.

100%. If anything the rework removed complexity since now you no longer can put thought into how you want to heal. It used to be eating increased dmg, speed, and dr but lowered healing, but now working out just increases damage and nothing else. Additionally, the removal of his speed boost removed his unique ways to engage fights. He now plays exactly like everyone else.

[Atkvin]

6 hours ago, abrocator said:

The nightmare creature could look like a buff (mighty) insect.  And of course it would hit hard and be hard to kill.  (Instead we got the banal downside of more sanity drain at night.)

Standing still/playing a mind-numbingly simplistic dance-timing minigame is not good game mechanic design.

Agreed. Klei essentially is trying to give Wolfgang a new downside locking his power behind the less accessibly exploited resource that is time - but aside from making Wolfgang way less unique and thematically relevant to the game's title, standing still to power up your character is just not interesting or engaging. If making his power less accessible is the goal, there are many other ways to do so that could encourage different gameplay. 

A shadow creature that ties into challenging Wolfgang with combat like you're suggesting could be more fitting for his current design as it takes advantage of Wolf not always being able to defend himself capably with his might, and it's probably more consistent with game lore as the creatures are all bug-like - but if Wolf were still designed around food and eating giving him his strength, I'd have liked to see perhaps shadow rats (reflective of the rat that scared him into exposing his act) that could terrify Wolfgang and doing what rats do, infest and rob food from his inventory.