[Suggestion about Wolfgang] Mightyness should drop upon overeating and passive drain reverted to previous value

[Pig Princess]

This could work in the following way. If Wolfgang consumes food that restores more hunger points than he is missing to get to maximum hunger, then flat mightyness decrease occurs; number can be adjusted.

What this would achieve:

 - Wolfgang would no longer be able to spam healing food in rapid consequence (especially food that restores a lot of hunger along with health, like perogie or honey ham), meaning that player can't tank too many hits with too little protection, which insentivises kiting. Yet player would be able to tank properly provided one has good armor and strategically planned healing items that restore much less hunger than health (trail mix, flower salad, glommer goop, wobster bisque, etc.), or use combination of hunger decreasing food and normal healing items (cooked moon shroom + healing food). Plus there is a bunch of ways to heal outside of food consumption.

 - Wolfgang would be able to go normal/wimpy form very comfortably on demand. This can be useful to quickly drop just under the cap of mighty form to catch alive moleworms for moggles/rain hat or cool down if one failed to dodge red gem deer magic attack, as well as use insulation against heat of wimpy form in summer. Right now player has to wait to let passive mightyness drain do the job to merely catch moleworms for ruins, which is the opposite of rushing, and it works against Wolfgang's area of application.

  - Wolfgang wouldn't create feeling that he is Wilson on steroids. Without this currently for boss battles it's exactly who Wolfgang is, and for accidental fights he is likely to either be equal to Wilson, or be Wilson for the most part of them, i.e. no unique playstyle can be seen. Migtyness drop on hit was element that was meant to prevent this, but in reality it lead to either pan flute spam in otherwise heavy tanking battles (Bee Queen), or to sidestepping + pumping weights (risking to despawn a boss), attacking with dumbells/kiting to the point of significantly lowering Wolf's dps (very relevant in Fuelweaver fight, but other battles too). Wolfgang is the character whose main strength is increased dps, so I would prefer his kit to not work against that.

 - Mightyness drop on overeating would create no negative synergy with Wolfgang's high maximum health and buff to marble armor, as was the case with drop-mightyness-on-hit iteration, and player still would have something extra to manage in fights. Absence of increased mightyness drain would allow to use some of mighty form benefits outside of fighting (such as wearing a piggyback), which in current iteration feels much less viable.

That being said, I would also like more unique things to be added to Wolfgang character to make his playstyle feel even more different from default (on top of possible migtyness tweaks), mainly for boss battles, and especially because previously he at least had speed boost. But I'll leave that for another topic.

[ShadowDuelist]

Technically it doesn’t make much sense that a giant bodybuilder starts stuffing himself on food and gets skinny (we’d probably need a fourth form called fluffy).
Mechanically and gameplay wise I get the idea.

[Pig Princess]

1 hour ago, ShadowDuelist said:

giant bodybuilder starts stuffing himself on food and gets skinny

Giant only because of nightmare fuel influece, in the Constant where the very fabric of reality changes because of one's state of mind (insanity effects), and nightmare fuel can take form of living creatures and being wooven out of thin air...

[Toroic]

I think this would be a terrible change, because the mechanics of mightiness already punish you significantly for dropping under 150 hunger. 

Losing mightiness on "overating" would create a lose-lose situation.

As far as the comparison to Wilson, every other character except Wes is "wilson but better".

[Owlrust]

44 minutes ago, Toros said:

the mechanics of mightiness already punish you significantly for dropping under 150 hunger.

Haven't been home to test it out, has the "increased drain when hungry" changed since the beta?

[ArubaroBeefalo]

8 minutes ago, Owlrust said:

Haven't been home to test it out, has the "increased drain when hungry" changed since the beta?

now works like this according to lakhnish

 

[Cheggf]

Either Wolfgang is obnoxious to play because he's not allowed to eat food due to needing to be above 150 hunger in order to not instantaneously vaporize into wimpy, or that feature is removed and Wolfgang is obnoxious to play because he's encouraged to just afk not doing anything before a fight starving himself so he can heal more.

16 hours ago, Pig Princess said:

Wolfgang wouldn't create feeling that he is Wilson on steroids.

Wolfgang needs to maintain his hunger and his might in order to get any bonus, expending time and resources. If he fails to do this he is penalized and possibly killed.

Meanwhile other characters spawn in for no effort and are "Wilson but has ai follower play the game for him", "Wilson but has ai followers play the game for him", "Wilson but he eats gears", "Wilson but he's on lumberjack steroids", " Wilson but he's on vampire steroids", so on and so forth. Everyone is Wilson but better and very few have downsides or investment requirements that matter as much as Wolfgang's do.

[Pig Princess]

7 hours ago, Cheggf said:

Either Wolfgang is obnoxious to play because he's not allowed to eat food due to needing to be above 150 hunger in order to not instantaneously vaporize into wimpy

 

23 hours ago, Pig Princess said:

number can be adjusted

 

7 hours ago, Cheggf said:

he's encouraged to just afk not doing anything before a fight starving himself so he can heal more

I don't know what you mean because usually I'm trying to not waste food to go over the cap even during boss battles with some tanking involved, and even in case of Wendy tanking Bee Queen (pretty hight rate at which damage is taken) with good armor (marble suit, night armor) I succeed to not go over the cap. For any other character damage rate is lower (without panflute, obviously) just because fight is longer and tanking roughly the same amount of damage is spread across much longer time. As for Wolfgang starving as a strategy, I'm sure this won't be needed since before mighty drain was increased - which I suggest to revert, in case you didn't noticed - one could comfortably stay at 100-150 hunger even without dumbells doing normal things one usuallly does. So that's 100 hunger to work with, plus some drains during the fight, but most important thing is, due to 2x damage Wolfgang would need much less tanking in general than other characters (he should need around 75-100 for Bee Queen according to my estimations).

Another example is Fuelweaver: I tested it with character with default damage modifier and needed only 8 trail mixes to fully tank 2nd phase (approximately 240 hp of healing), which means Wolfgang would be more than ok with his 2x damage, 200 maximum health, buff to marble armor (I used thulecite armor, which is 2x more damage taken compared to marble suits), fight lasted between half a day and day (ice cream didn't even spoil). Keep in mind that I'm far from being best fighter, especially in this fight.

7 hours ago, Cheggf said:

If he fails to do this he is penalized and possibly killed

Not more penalized and killed than any other character, both normal and wimpy forms of Wolfgang are perfectly capable to fight, I played both Wilson and Wes in Bee Queen fight (arguably the most tanking-intensive in the game). I mean, if you would try to put 40 perogies inside character over time of half a day, sure, you will be Wes, but that's exactly what my suggestion is meant to prevent. Actual downside which is interesting to play with, discouraging for simply holding F and winning, more than anyone else even. With good armor number can be adjusted so normal Wolfgang would be typycal result if you are medium bad at kiting. Remember, Wolfgang still gains mightyness on attacking.

 

7 hours ago, Cheggf said:

Meanwhile other characters spawn in for no effort

Wolfgang can go mighty day 1 by chopping trees and mining stone for your first science machine and remain mighty afterwards due to killing all the pigs/spiders/etc., things you will be doing anyway as any other survivior. Even if you prefer to not fight much (why pick Wolfgang then though?) dumbell pauses mightyness drain as long as you are moving, which works perfectly fine. Which is basically free.

7 hours ago, Cheggf said:

Wilson but has ai follower play the game for him

Unless killing bees and spiders is all you want to do, you can argue that Wendy is exactly what you wrote, but even in this case you will be more time-efficient to help Abigail knock down beehives while she kills bees and attacking spider den yourself while she deals with spiders. Everything else requires managing her aggro, and a lot of bosses require elixirs (especially if you are doing them without cheese like boat one). Tell me Abigail plays the game for you in the ruins, so I could laugh for a while, especially with all the rooks there. Did you know that without Wendy's help she can take out only 2 bishops maximum on her own and be on the verge of death, the least dangerous clockwork for her? Every other hord requires Wendy's interaction, via managing Abigail's aggro mode, elixirs or both (now hounds are also harder).

7 hours ago, Cheggf said:

Wilson but has ai followers play the game for him

Is that about Webber? Did you know how vulnerable to AoE spiders are (especially noticeble in EoT, ToT, FW, CC fights, but good old Deerclops as well, possibly new Ancient Guardian (I'll wait with testing until devs fix his aggro)), that it is the whole quest to spawn Spider Queen and get nurses then, that you have to manage aggro of spiders and aggro of mobs and bosses (Bee Queen, for example) which is especially noticeble with relatively low amount of spiders (20-30)? Did you try to save meat from being eaten by reacting as quick as possible? Very, very far from Wilson experience, and I didn't even touch spitters. Oh, and death as Webber is the more punishing the more spiders you have since they are automatically unfriended in that case.

7 hours ago, Cheggf said:

Wilson but he eats gears

WX waits for his rework. But even now once one can get overcharge, it's much less Wilson-y experience. And eating gears in the ruins instead of being worried about normal healing is actually noticeble difference on qualitative level.

7 hours ago, Cheggf said:

Wilson but he's on lumberjack steroids

If all you do is chop trees as normal Woodie - sure, but you have wereforms. Arguably they could use some buffs (or rather, ability to extend them and making idols lasting forever), but from how you describe Woodie I bet you didn't even try to watch someone competent play him, let alone play him yourself. Here, you can entertain youself:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXQjxcCcr80Zce2VGqSjfcg/videos

Also maybe some day I'll record Bee Queen solo fight as wereMoose only, same for Dragonfly, even though they are not resource-efficient, but I'm too lazy to buy recording programm only for you to watch. Plus there is lunar island rush, ruins rush (latter one doesn't really save resources, but its just very different from normal ruins rush), different hunger and health managment during general playthrough, especially if you use wereMoose often (but other forms too).

7 hours ago, Cheggf said:

Wilson but he's on vampire steroids

Wigfrid could use more tweaks so she feels even less like Wilson with buffs, but even right now vampirism and songs lead to qualitatively different strategies, both for soloing bosses and general survival (stat managment, weapon choice since much more of them break 50 damage treshold, etc.). For groups she makes a difference often, she is definition of teamwork in group, and very different from Wilson in that regard.

Could you please stop exaggerating like you did in bottomless firepit topic? Or you can live in your own version of reality alone, in that case, consider my comment being last response to you.

10 hours ago, Toros said:

Losing mightiness on "overating" would create a lose-lose situation

Loose-Win actually. And before drain was increased staying mighty above 100 hunger was very comfortable even though I'm not a best rusher and prefer to take my time to prototype base along the way (I did ruins rush as Wolf a couple of times and past 3 minues of day 1 never was I dropping into normal form even without dumbell). As for bosses, as I pointed out, with good armor and Wolf's damage you don't really need a lot of healing, even in tanking-intensive ones. Again, you can reduce you hunger or use non-food healing worst case scenario. But realistically you won't need it if you know what you are doing.

Ok, I got that people don't want to encourage skill in Wolfgang's gameplay loop. Then I have a question: how exactly is Wolfgang literally not Wilson with 2x damage in recent iteration? On qualitative level. What is the appeal of playing him then? Previously there was speed so one could engage in some battles in different way/with different preparation, and needed to manage 3x hunger drain (choose hunger points-rich food farms and dishes), but now what? Congratulations, you skill floor is equal to skill ceiling now.

[Pig Princess]

To make things clear, I would like to add that when I write "Wilson on steroids", I mean literally the same playstyle, but with less resources spend, same tactics, same strategies, and so on. Quantitative difference only minus very tiny niche situations where he hits some breakpoints (old Wolf was more different from Wilson then current one is at this point). On the other hand, even characters such as WX, Winona, Wickerbottom, etc. who can be considered "Wilson with X" still have something different to offer, something - even if optional - to spice up an experience. That doesn't mean I would like this situation to remain that way, on the contrary, I would rather have as much characters who encourage player to play differently as possible, the more extent the better. Because I already can play as Wilson perfectly fine and experience all content as him, and don't like megabasing. Different playstyles of characters are the way for me to keep being interested in the game.

First and foremost goal of original post was to make Wolfgang playstyle different, ideally with a lot of options players can choose from and work with to come up with their own preferred playstyle. Balancing in terms of strength is secondary effect (although I would welcome that). So I would like people to take time and try to separate those things and discuss them separately, or else it will be a mess.

[Wonz]

12 hours ago, Toros said:

I think this would be a terrible change, because the mechanics of mightiness already punish you significantly for dropping under 150 hunger. 
 

He should retain some efficiency and damage if in his middle form even if 25% extra compared to the 100% extra from mightiness

[goatt]

The point I do agree with op is that Wolfgang should be allowed to live comfortably in regular form compared to Wilson.

But I think Wolfgang is unique in his own way. (He’s not lacking uniqueness)
- Players do need to manage forms in doing some tasks, such as mining stone fruits, hammering giant crops besides mole worms.

- Wolfgang can is also the best sailor because of speed boost. His bare hands with driftwood oars are faster than 2 masts at full speed. He’s the best ocean explorer other than woodie.

- He’s working / fighting faster than Wilson in all aspects, but not the fastest compared to the best characters. In other words, he’s above average in all aspects, which is unique in itself.

- He’s the only character who’s nearly unaffected for not having a beef in speed run because his speed is not slowed carrying heavy objects.

- His ability to break 50 damage threshold using axe is unique in itself.

 

therefore, I don’t think he’s really lacking uniqueness.

[ArubaroBeefalo]

1 hour ago, Wonz said:

He should retain some efficiency and damage if in his middle form even if 25% extra compared to the 100% extra from mightiness

the point of the character is to remain mighty not to be wigfrid if you dont take care of the bar

[Pig Princess]

2 hours ago, goatt said:

such as mining stone fruits, hammering giant crops besides mole worms

Situation with moleworms is the only real difference, which occurs only because dead moleworm and alive moleworm are qualitatively different results, or destroyed and saved moleworm burrow in case Wolfgang player considers shoveling them in mighty form instead of waiting to become normal. Other than that it's a little bit more of hammer/pickaxe wasted, but in case stone fruit can be easily replaced with mass mining via a single piece of gunpowder or single use of weather pain for unlimited amount of stone fruits. Which is just what Wilson would do.

2 hours ago, goatt said:

Wolfgang can is also the best sailor because of speed boost

This is the thing I mentioned in my other topic, and I acknowledge that, but again, it's more situational than it seems since multiple ocean debris, as well as sea weeds, sea boulders and salt formations placed randomly all over the ocean make one constantly stop and pick/manuver around them, etc., so, to be honest, too much speed makes it less comfortable to travel ironically, at least for me. Maybe it would be important once ocean is cleared, but by that time there won't be anything left to do.

2 hours ago, goatt said:

He’s working / fighting faster than Wilson in all aspects, but not the fastest compared to the best characters. In other words, he’s above average in all aspects, which is unique in itself

That's my point: 2 characters end up with the same outcome and use exactly the same strategies and approach to survival, the only difference is in number, which is barely noticeble (aside from being unable to get exactly 20 logs per flint axe for first science machine and alchemy in some cases, but that is more of annoyance than real downside, and applies only once per playthrough). What is the point in 2 characters existing at the same time, if they behave the same, but one is slightly better? In other words, you mentioned difference in quantity, not quality, which is exactly what I'm complaining about.

Lets assume Klei decided to add new character. Wilson 2.0 does everything Wilson does, but with 1.05 efficiency for tools, grows beard of 1.25 insulation value, gets 2x times more beard hair per razor use and his favourite food is meaty stew which gives 165 hunger points instead of 150 with maximum hunger of 150 points. Do you think it would be interesting? If yes, then Wilson 3.0 with all on 1.1x cames, then Wilson 4.0 with 0.9x, then superWilson with 1.5x... I mean, the whole original point of reworks announced in 2019 roadmap was to refresh players experience. I'm sticking to this statement, but it seems less and less remembered from devs themselves sometimes.

2 hours ago, goatt said:

He’s the only character who’s nearly unaffected for not having a beef in speed run because his speed is not slowed carrying heavy objects.

This is actually not true, exactly the opposite is the case. Since Wolfgang lost his speed boost, he can't compete with beefalos anymore just like every other character on foot does with only cane and road available (or compete in terms of storage space with comparable speed achieved by trading backpack slot for magiluminescence). Too much difference in speed lead to Wolfgang player defaulting to beefalo taming more than was the case pre-rework where speed was present. And since Wolf now defaults to beefalo much more often, you see those perks like moving statues without penalty and using piggyback without penalty wasted, i.e. not used. In speed run or general playthrough you are still much faster if you are moving statues via untamed beefalo rather than on foot.

2 hours ago, goatt said:

His ability to break 50 damage threshold using axe is unique in itself.

And how often it occurs? Are you implying that Wolf's uniqueness is to deal 50 damage per hit cheaply? Wigfrid enters chat, as well as any other player capable of picking tentacle spike in the swamp. Does this mean one of the parts of Wolf's uniqueness is to never upgrade from spear to better weapons? If so, this is a bad design.

So in the end we have among unique things:

- annoyance in catching moleworms (1-2 times per playthrough), can be mitigated my shoveling them, which could lead to their extinction in pubs;

- questionably useful faster rowing (but ok, I'll count that);

- ability to get away with never upgrading from spear to something else.

And that's it. Other things are just numbers and very niche tresholds, a lot of which Wolf shares with Wigfrid and anyone with pepper spice. For me it's not enough, but even if it is for you, I fail to understand how making Wolfgang more unique would hurt people that think he already is. This could only increase number of satisfied people, isn't it? And according to developers from 2019 themselves, this is the path they are trying to follow and players can expect.

[goatt]

You twisted my words a bit and only shot down a narrow version of what i meant. You argued against a strawman, but not my original points.

1. Uniqueness is a lot of the times subjective. I say somebody is unique because he's so tall! Or wolfgang is so strong he deals 2x damage. Is 2x really strong? I think it's really strong, but to you, it's just Wilson on steroids. So we will never agree with the standards of uniqueness. But I tell you what I and other people think, which is 2x damage, 1.5x working speed, 1.33x rowing speed, is quite unique.

2. Almost all the perks are situational. So are all the downsides. Saying this perk or that perk isn't unique because it's situational isn't a good point. Almost all the perks are situational. Yes, Wolfgang's perks only shine in certain situations, but whose aren't?

3. The beef discussion is solely about carrying "heavy objects". Unaffected compared to nake other players, not compared to players using beef. Other people are affected without beef compared to naked. But Wolfgang with heavy object is the same as Wolfgang naked, in this particular context.

4. The threshold is just an example. It's more than axe. Spike, hambat, spear, darksword, and all of the spear are breaking it to some extent, and decrease the total hits needed to kill some mobs. The reason I use axe as an example is because, as you also mentioned, his atk damage can be brought up to the level of spike by only using axe. But it would be funny to assume that I discourage people from using better weapons.

5. Annoyance of mole is pretty easy to solve, just wait for half a day.

6. Stonefruits and giant crops. Again, it's subjective experience. Chests are usually emptied by random players in public server, and I don't feel like wasting 50% durability of the tools. While you can afford it in your game, I find it not worth wasting on my pub games, and I usually completely avoid doing those chores.

My entire reply is for clarification

[Wonz]

Wigfrid has dmg reduction, powerfull songs and recovery on hitting enemy.

[Pig Princess]

1 hour ago, goatt said:

shot down a narrow version of what i meant

I don't think so, but if you do, could you, please, elaborate, where exactly differs your version of what you meant and my version of what you meant?

Claiming someone is fighting a strawman is serious statement, and you didn't write it just because you disagreed with me or have nothing to counter my arguements, do you?

Thus, I would appreciate if you listed specific criteria you used for deciding someone fights a strawman. I'm genuely interested, because in situation when person #1 and person #2 disagree and proceed to do so, this may be result of:

- one or both of them fighting strawman of other's arguement (how are you making sure you don't do the same you claim I do?);

- one of them or both misunderstanding each other;

- one or both of them discovered leaks in their arguements, but have nothing to counter and refuse to rethink their understanding of situation;

- one or both not noticing that they use same words, but with different meaning, in that case, definition of "uniqueness" may be the root of the problem.

Anyway, I still don't see how exactly making something more unique can make upset people that claim "X" is already uniqie. There is no such thing as "too unique", right? Or no? Because it's right for me.

As for the other part of post, you wrote

1 hour ago, goatt said:

Uniqueness is a lot of the times subjective

This statement, unfortunally, is used far too often as an excuse to ignore arguements of other people and make topic look like conversation about tastes. Sometimes it is about tastes, but sometimes one just needs question oneself "why I think what I think?", and common elements can be found, rational discussion can occur.

In this particular case I think Wolfgang is not unique enough. I ask myself "why", and can come up with some more or less objective criteria as a result. Particularly, to me "unique" includes different outcome, different approach, different preparation to roughly the same outcome, but not number change. In case character's playstyle it translates into:

- being able to do relevant unique thing no one could do or do in such different way that it's basically another thing (like teleports, across the map or on screen, manipulate with 2 entities of very different configurable properties and use this difference to one's advantage, etc.)

- being able to use different strategy to complete the same objective, example of such are boss fights as Wendy (Fuelweaver, Celestial Champion p3, Bee Queen (even though this is simplified compared to normal fight), shadow pieces with t3 bishop, but t3 rook also give me feeling of uniqueness, etc.), non-boss activity (like lunar/ruins rush as Woodie, even if it's of the same time/resource efficiency or even lower, as long as it's not too low in comparison), using different tools as Wormwood (bat bat and fertilizers for healing, bloom instead of magi/cane/whatever for speed tresholds, using dark swords much more often and rushing them, etc., even solving healing situation as Warly with less common dishes/prioritize tactics to avoid damage, as well as weather protection and having different set of available emergency decisions (due to portable crock pot)

- different preparation to, for example, receiving the same tool, such as higher damage, higher speed, basically anything (which is why I prefer characters with preparation to ones coming with power out of the gate).

I hope I cleared that. That being said, my original post falls into #2 and #3 category and would make Wolfgang unique enough for me.

1 hour ago, goatt said:

Annoyance of mole is pretty easy to solve, just wait for half a day.

You can't be serious suggesting this for character whose playstyle is to be as much time efficient as possible, right? Because otherwise it doesn't make sense to remain this way - waiting for half a day being in strong negative synergy with most of other Wolfgang's features.

1 hour ago, goatt said:

Unaffected compared to nake other players, not compared to players using beef

Except characters don't exist in vacuum. By that logic Woodie is the sole character that can access ocean content, because using ocean gear for comparison is not allowed, therefore using boat shouldn't be viewed as alternative. In other words, this is what comparison Woodie vs anyone else as ocean explorers shows if one artificially narrows options. This is absurd example, but derived from the same logic. Which means that this way of thinking doesn't allow to obtain correct estimations, therefore should be abandoned.

[goatt]

@Pig Princess 

You said "I don't think so, but if you do, could you, please, elaborate, where exactly differs your version of what you meant and my version of what you meant?" I just used my entire previous comment to explain the difference between what I mean, and what you think I mean. The entire reply was the elaboration.

- I also did elaborate on why uniqueness is subjective. My intention wasn't trying to be more convincing, but to discourage expanding on that part of the topic. However, I did try to explain to you that " I say somebody is unique because he's so tall! Or wolfgang is so strong he deals 2x damage. Is 2x really strong? I think it's really strong, but to you, it's just Wilson on steroids. So we will never agree with the standards of uniqueness. But I tell you what I and other people think, which is 2x damage, 1.5x working speed, 1.33x rowing speed, is quite unique." That was to say that what you think is not unique is unique in my eye.

- Waiting for half a day is really not that big of deal. No one is asking you to do nothing for half a day. "Waiting" is just a way to suggest Wolfgang should plan ahead in this kinda situation. I think it's pretty common sense I didn't mean literal waiting and doing nothing. This kinda player-dependent efficiency is not about mechanism but about scheduling and prioritization. I can spend this half a day just cooking food, or collect the logs or marbles I farmed early, or harvest grown grass and twigs. Anything really. Calling "waiting half a day" inefficient is just ignorant of players' part to adapt to character-specific downsides.

- A major part of discussion any topic is about understanding the context. I very much feel misunderstood by you in your previous 2 replies. When I try to explain "unaffected", you took it completely out of context. I tried to be as elaborate as possible in my previous reply, and that is the best i can do. I don't feel like repeating myself again in this comment.

- About strawman, it's happening all the time. In real life, I'll just let it slide and keep the conversation going. But in debate, I usually use lots of energy to clarify my points. It's not a serious accusation in my experience. You just misunderstood my points and talked about something unrelated. How do I avoid strawman? I simply ask "what do you mean?" or try to paraphrase what the other person mean before carrying on comments. That way I let the other person see and judge from my summary if I got it right. Why am I not doing so in this reply?  I don't think I argued strawman, and I haven't been accused of doing so under this thread.

(Here is an example when I missed the point in another thread. Yes, I make mistakes, too. It's not a big deal.)