Simple, Bold and Effective approaches to character reworks

[ZombieDupe]

Something that has been done a lot that I have noticed with the character reworks is that in some sense every character gets their own new meter to manage, crafting tab and lots of perk soup (minute perks that just should not be there). I really dislike this approach to be fair because not only can it make characters often opt-in and opt-out at times, as is the case especially with Winona, as opposed to staying as a character for a very long time to see how they make your gameplay different in a fun way, but it also makes it slightly arbitrary as to why these certain items can't. There is a lot you could do with simplicity and things are much more recognizable and Klei has done it before, you will find that most simplistic yet significant characters are usually the most useful in a team setting. If it was one character (and personally I think it should only be Wickerbottom who stays like this because she was the first to have this sort of thing and pretty much all except one of the books that she has are amazing to use, but when you spread this type of mechanic to so many more characters it just looks like you are trying too hard to make them seem quirky).

When don't starve's Strange New Powers update launched many characters were simply given special items as one of their perks, the other being some passive mechanic like fire immunity, saying meh to sanity or some other stat as well as a drawback that really changed how you play. These special items were almost extensions of the characters as they served almost exclusively as a perk of them. During DST's initial development however you soon gave up on that idea for whatever reason and the only character that actually still has a special item which cannot be crafted and can only really be used by that character is Woodie's axe Lucy which sadly has been neglected besides a few niche uses in favor of crammed in extra transformations, which to me personally ruined thematically the already mechanically flawed character. One exception (again, exceptions) besides Wilson I would put forward to having a special item as a rule would be WX as entering with nothing but having massive potential regardless (which WX definitely does have with gears and lightning boost) shows how WX sees itself as superior as is, being a robot and all.

I wanted to say this because there has been a lot of tweaking with Wolfgang recently and to some degree it appears as if half of the gameplay is almost ending up a mirror of what Wigfrid has going for since you can choose more whether to tank or kite and just use whatever perk utility you have to buff your combat prowess and keep it going for both characters that are stronger than average.

Because of this I would suggest to ditch the mightiness meter completely, bring back the mightiness based on hunger, but do keep it static instead of gradually decreasing damage output like it was before the rework, and I would really encourage it being x1, x2, x3 damage (yes, tripple the damage at mighty form) based on mightiness instead of x2 maximum and everything else being lower. Even though I don't play the character a whole lot, it does look like a core theme of the character was lost when mightiness was not based on his hunger anymore. The dumbells are an obvious item to have as his special item but it looks like you noticed that it would clash with the hunger-dependent mightiness, so how would you fix that without the meter?  Well, keeping single special item purpose in mind, if you only keep a single set of all the dumbells and make it a "click to use" item instead of equip oriented (much like the pan flute or Wickerbottom's books) you could make it so that when used, they drain a bit of hunger instantly but freeze the hunger drain momentarily, let's say a minute, but will be made null the moment you eat something. And then there, I think you have successfully implemented a character's special item that has a quick and effective use for its intended purpose, while staying true to the idea of the character. The gym is a neat structure but if you do keep it, just throw it into the structures tab and it could play a similar purpose except lasting for much longer while draining a bit more hunger per workout click while being less hunger costly for the hunger-freeze overall.

So what about his downside? If I were to guess he is supposed to be a character that can be inhumanely strong but is easily scared and for someone like his character I would also expect to be a big dumb goof in a sense. There was support for the idea of his max sanity being low, something like 100 but strangely there has been no change to this, his sanity is still the same 200 as our gentleman scientist Wilson. If it was changed you could then also use this to create a very effective and unique drawback with it. My suggestion is to have him get stunned and play a "scared" emote (but not taking damage) when this happens in a wider radius than hit reach from creatures that attack him while he is low on sanity/insane. This way you ensure that he stays more true to the character of being strong but wimpy and players will have to keep a keen eye on his sanity especially since it is at a low 100. Even if this sounds excessive, you can experiment on how this could work. I know there are other characters who have trouble keeping sane, but this has so far been the most interesting way that I could think of having a downside for such a character for making the gameplay thrilling and also leaves nightmare fuel farming more for the other characters to take care of allowing for some awesome character cooperation synergies.

It never made sense to me why piggyback has to have a speed loss in the first place. It is a very costly progression item from the backpack, FOUR pig skins (this is the most insane part of the cost), SIX silk and some rope and it still has a negative 10% speed loss while wearing it? If the Ice Cube (which you should revisit as an item) was any indication of passively worn items like this over extended periods of time was any indication of something being wrong here, there. The marble suit's slowdown works because it's only something that you periodically would put on for combat and when taken off but kept in inventory it does not slow you down, same goes for insanity auras of dark sword and night armor. You can't really do much the same with a backpack type item or weather clothing because you will pretty much keep those on so long as you are not at base.

To summarize I am trying to put forward the idea that had been kind of going well with don't starve when it first came out. Having 2 positive and 1 negative perks (with an exception), 1 involving a special item, another being something passive but noticeable and the last being whatever interesting negative perk you can think of to make the character's gameplay different, should be the approach you should bring back with all this, and maybe revisit some previously refreshed characters again to reflect this. This is not only how you achieve balance but fun and recognizable gameplay changes. I am saying this because there are a lot of complicated single-thing mechanics that you can squeeze down to less while achieving similar results. You can take Wanda's watches for example, I guarantee you that there is a way you could cut them down to 1 or 2 watches if you really wanted to while still having all the perks of the same 5 or 6 watches.

I will say though that what I really do love about the changes to the character is the fact that the mightiness effect stretches further than just pure damage that doesn't make it feel like perk soup and if you were to delve deeper into that some things that his wimpy form can/can't do like lifting heavy objects at all could be interesting to explore. I also appreciate the more responsive approach you have taken with the beta branch updating, I hope you keep doing what you have been during this QOL beta in the future updates to come. Not just fixing bugs and then launching to live version a week or so later but actually considering feedback and improving changes while also fixing bugs before launching to live version so that things can be improved and revisited in experimented and tested bursts and notably so instead of just theoretically putting things together.

[dubious little]

26 minutes ago, ZombieDupe said:

Something that has been done a lot that I have noticed with the character reworks is that in some sense every character gets their own new meter to manage, crafting tab and lots of perk soup (minute perks that just should not be there). I really dislike this approach to be fair because not only can it make characters often opt-in and opt-out at times, as is the case especially with Winona, as opposed to staying as a character for a very long time to see how they make your gameplay different in a fun way, but it also makes it slightly arbitrary as to why these certain items can't. There is a lot you could do with simplicity and things are much more recognizable and Klei has done it before, you will find that most simplistic yet significant characters are usually the most useful in a team setting. If it was one character (and personally I think it should only be Wickerbottom who stays like this because she was the first to have this sort of thing and pretty much all except one of the books that she has are amazing to use, but when you spread this type of mechanic to so many more characters it just looks like you are trying too hard to make them seem quirky).

This feels a bit like an exaggeration, there are only 3 characters I can think of with a meter mechanic which is Wolfgang, Woodie (which Woodie got his meter mechanic toned down in his rework compared to his solo form) and Wigfrid, all of which work completely differently from eachother. You don't even need to manage Wigfrid's at all and Woodie's is literally just your hunger bar, so you aren't really actively managing it especially when you mostly get to choose when to change. The crafting tab is just an easy way to keep characters with multiple specific items more organised. Perk soup is something i don't really understand, I saw people use this argument against Walter but all his things besides the bee downside make sense when put together, maybe it could be executed better with some tweaks but overall it makes sense. If you mean things like how Willow can put out fires faster, cook faster or fuels the campfire for more than I really don't feel like these are an issue, sure they're very minor but they make sense with the character and they give that much more uniqueness to each survivor. Winona and Warly are really the only characters who have the downside you mentioned, sure you can make things like Wigfrid's armour from switching but are you saying the character who can make armour shouldn't be able to help the team out by providing it? Even then her armour and weapons aren't objectively better than anything else like how Winona's catapults can create unique farms or how Warly's dishes buff you on top of whatever damage you were already doing. Not many characters can really share items with the team anyways, other survivors can't use BERNIE! (only the small form), other survivors can't use Walter's slingshot or big Woby, other survivors can't use Wolfgang's dumbbells, other survivors can't use the codex umbra, other survivors can't use Webber's items, etc. Even if a significant amount of the survivors can use eachothers items, this is a team co-op game, it makes sense that others can use eachothers advantages without ruining the character (like using Wigfrid's armour, you'll still always be worse at tanking hits as well as not healing sanity + health when fighting).

49 minutes ago, ZombieDupe said:

When don't starve's Strange New Powers update launched many characters were simply given special items as one of their perks, the other being some passive mechanic like fire immunity, saying meh to sanity or some other stat as well as a drawback that really changed how you play. These special items were almost extensions of the characters as they served almost exclusively as a perk of them. During DST's initial development however you soon gave up on that idea for whatever reason and the only character that actually still has a special item which cannot be crafted and can only really be used by that character is Woodie's axe Lucy which sadly has been neglected besides a few niche uses in favor of crammed in extra transformations, which to me personally ruined thematically the already mechanically flawed character. One exception (again, exceptions) besides Wilson I would put forward to having a special item as a rule would be WX as entering with nothing but having massive potential regardless (which WX definitely does have with gears and lightning boost) shows how WX sees itself as superior as is, being a robot and all.

The reason is because DST is a multiplayer game, DS didn't have to make the characters work in teams at all so the items felt a lot more special. The solo characters asides from maybe Hamlet and a few exceptions have way less impact on how you play, you don't really see solo Webber doing anything unique because spiders were just worse pigs that were easier to mass produce, anyone else could do the same thing with pig houses or bunnymen hutches, but now Webber can actually utilise his horder consistently due to nurses and having spiders be infinitely tamed, as well as being able to move the different spider types between the surface, across water and caves giving a much more unique approach over any other type of follower. I don't understand your problems with Woodie's transformations, werebeaver already served similar purposes to most of his forms (can mine/hammer/chop/dig, can tank mobs) but now he can rush certain locations better as well as get around faster plus he can take out hordes and tank better. He really wasn't dramatically changed, just given more depth and has to think cleverly about what transformations to use.

 

1 hour ago, ZombieDupe said:

To summarize I am trying to put forward the idea that had been kind of going well with don't starve when it first came out. Having 2 positive and 1 negative perks (with an exception), 1 involving a special item, another being something passive but noticeable and the last being whatever interesting negative perk you can think of to make the character's gameplay different, should be the approach you should bring back with all this, and maybe revisit some previously refreshed characters again to reflect this. This is not only how you achieve balance but fun and recognizable gameplay changes. I am saying this because there are a lot of complicated single-thing mechanics that you can squeeze down to less while achieving similar results. You can take Wanda's watches for example, I guarantee you that there is a way you could cut them down to 1 or 2 watches if you really wanted to while still having all the perks of the same 5 or 6 watches.

I disagree heavily, the solo characters are one of the main reasons I don't play DS as much, they all feel like Wilson but with x (besides mentioned above exceptions like the Hamlet characters), now they all feel a lot more fleshed out while not being over the top. Willow still is Wilson with fire, but now shes a lot less like Wilson because she has BERNIE!, can interact with fire more and can cook with her lighter, being similar to Wilson isn't bad either, but DST imo has a good balance between having enough perks while not going over the top. The characters aren't as drastically different as you think really, Webber's rework pretty much made his gameplay gimmick actually viable to use as well as giving him some nice QOL spider stuff, Woodie I already mentioned how he still has the essence he originally has, Wendy was pretty much just made better, as well as gaining some extra crafts, etc. Wolfgang is decently different compared to these, but he doesn't really work in a co-op environment when he actively is using up food. I feel like all the reworks have been amazing, with some needing tweaks, the only bad rework imo was Wolfgang but they've fixed him now. I just don't think the solo character system works in Together and honestly I just feel like the solo versions are much more dull.

[chincer]

I personally like when characters have very diverse and interesting things that not only is entirely for them, but sometimes work for the team, like wortox healing and widfrig new battle songs, I find wolfgang rework to be added mechanic without changing the feel just the condition, granted it makes the condition far different, before he used to need that food to fight and even lead to waste resources in favor of max dps now he trains for the purpose of fighting

I do hope every character ends feeling distinctive enough from the others to the point where a team that have one of each never feels overall and all can gain something, like walter being a range damage dealer if the team have some already tanking that boss or wormwood and early very specific perks

[ZombieDupe]

I think I should clarify, having a special item doesn't mean the character is boiled down to that item. Having a special item also doesn't mean the character's special perk of that item is only really useful to that character/player and won't be useful for other players, in fact I think it's good to have them be made to be useful for others when the character uses them, you just have to think a little to realize how to make the feature have such functionality. Wortox is a good example of this being implemented! Working almost like it, but not quite. Souls are unique types of items for him that serve multiple purposes, many of which are intuitive for people to understand if you know how to drop things, click to eat and soul hop (2 of these things are already indicated in writing for Right Mouse click). He can eat the souls, teleport and heal with them. Healing AOE is already useful to other players directly. This is how all characters should be done as one of their perks! You multi-purpose an item or extend a "trait" to include multiple specifications, like Willow being immune to fire and resistant to heat (being immune to heat as well would be much more useful and logical in my opinion though) and it does not fall into perk soup category.

Things that would fall under that would be, well, Walter for example. You could easily fix him by making the slingshot his special item (could make boomerang) and Woby as his secondary perk. But he has a bunch of other things that just don't make sense in any way to be special for him. Why is the tent unique to him? Why is the hat even needed when it's sole purpose is to mitigate his main downside, not to mention you spawn with it while hard to destroy (must wear it out or feed to eyeplant) and takes up a slot usually dedicated to armor. What part of his most distinct traits covers the "he gets sanity from standing around trees" while other characters could just as easily have that perk (Woodie and Wormwood), it's so minute might as well not have it to not confuse new players. You could say a similar thing about him taking extra damage from bees be an extra small downside when you already have a much more significant one in place, also will confuse new players if they pay attention to their health bar. The only thing I would consider reasonable for him is craftable ammunition, that doesn't really need a tab and you could cut it down to just 3 ammunition types (one for stun, one for damage, one that is rare but deals lots of damage, the ice staff can, should and already does cover the same ice round function if not better). Think comprehensive use instead of just stuffing whatever idea you come up with for the character specifically, making rounds out of manure, and rocks, and gold, and marble and thulecite and more and more ends up with a character specific crafting tab requirement which you have to memorize because of how many round types there really are that you can make them out of.

Perks like cooking faster, crafting faster etc generally are annoying to keep track of in your head. It would be more straight forward if there was only one character that could do pretty much every manual task with a faster animation as their main perk, or even add all of that to a single consumable item (if it were implemented, and it should be, but with less speed boost to not be broken and not look like you're cheating), the Coffee. Check out Shipwrecked or even Hamlet if you have no idea what Coffee does.

As playing as Wortox demonstrates, it creates a playstyle. Other players will want you around for easy healing and being able to teleport to do some other tasks, maybe even useful in combat to dodge things. Also having one less mouth to feed if you can just munch on souls and keep your sanity up. That is why this method is extremely powerful and distinct rather than having some of this and that placed here and there and maybe some of those small perks are extremely useful but being at least somewhat obscured either way.

[planetearth]

a stealth wolfgang complaint thread

[dubious little]

11 hours ago, ZombieDupe said:

Things that would fall under that would be, well, Walter for example. You could easily fix him by making the slingshot his special item (could make boomerang) and Woby as his secondary perk. But he has a bunch of other things that just don't make sense in any way to be special for him. Why is the tent unique to him? Why is the hat even needed when it's sole purpose is to mitigate his main downside, not to mention you spawn with it while hard to destroy (must wear it out or feed to eyeplant) and takes up a slot usually dedicated to armor. What part of his most distinct traits covers the "he gets sanity from standing around trees" while other characters could just as easily have that perk (Woodie and Wormwood), it's so minute might as well not have it to not confuse new players. You could say a similar thing about him taking extra damage from bees be an extra small downside when you already have a much more significant one in place, also will confuse new players if they pay attention to their health bar. The only thing I would consider reasonable for him is craftable ammunition, that doesn't really need a tab and you could cut it down to just 3 ammunition types (one for stun, one for damage, one that is rare but deals lots of damage, the ice staff can, should and already does cover the same ice round function if not better). Think comprehensive use instead of just stuffing whatever idea you come up with for the character specifically, making rounds out of manure, and rocks, and gold, and marble and thulecite and more and more ends up with a character specific crafting tab requirement which you have to memorize because of how many round types there really are that you can make them out of.

Perks like cooking faster, crafting faster etc generally are annoying to keep track of in your head. It would be more straight forward if there was only one character that could do pretty much every manual task with a faster animation as their main perk, or even add all of that to a single consumable item (if it were implemented, and it should be, but with less speed boost to not be broken and not look like you're cheating), the Coffee. Check out Shipwrecked or even Hamlet if you have no idea what Coffee does.

Woby acts as easy transportation and as an extended inventory, this encourages Walter to be away from base longer and to speed around places, y'know, scouting out the areas.

The slingshot ties into his sanity, since he loses amounts if hit, I think it needs to be tweaked to be faster but it has an intended purpose.

Campfire perks and the tent encourage Walter to set up small camps, as well as setting up camps being beneficial to sanity (stories + sleeping in a tent), cooking faster is just meant to be so he isn't wasting time cooking over telling stories. Setting up mini camps while out and about seems pretty scout like to me which fits with his existing perks as well as his theme.

The hat is intended to help with his sanity downside while on the move, having 2 inventory slots be taken up at the start of the game isn't an issue when you have Woby (especially when characters like Webber are missing 3/2 slots at the start as well). Lots of characters have intended ways to deal with their downsides (Willow and lighter + Bernie for her cold downside, Wendy using Abigail to get full damage rather than less, Wortox using souls to deal with his hunger downside, Wurt gaining extra hunger from veggies/fruit, Wigfrid being encouraged to kill mobs for meat, just some examples), obviously not every character works like this, but Walter is intended to be able to deal with his downside with his own perks.

The tree perk is yet another sanity related thing, I will admit you could throw this into the perk soup pot but it's still useful, you can gain sanity while on the move through a forest or help yourself gain massive amounts of sanity by having glommer + hat + trees + story. Wormwood simply doesn't need it since his sanity is already the easiest to manage in the game, and Woodie would gain sanity from chopping rather than being around trees, however I'm assuming they didn't add this to keep him an all-rounder (all his stats get affected by his forms and he isn't particularly better at anything when it comes to stats). Walter clearly has a big emphasis on maintaining sanity and scouting, I.E creating a playstyle, he isn't just a ranged character with an extra chester/beefalo.

The entire game already heavily requires memory anyway, when do hounds come? When does Deerclops or Antlion come? When is it a new moon for me to do Shadow Pieces? Which tentacle leads to the atrium? How do I find the ruins? How do I find the lunar islands? How do I spawn Malbatross? When is it a full moon for glommer + moonstone event? What gear do I need to bring to fight x boss? (like Fuelweaver needing teleportation or bringing weather pains, Dfly needing a panflute, etc) what do I need to craft x? How do I get all the celestial alters? How do I make x recipe in the crockpot? The list can just go on and on. I wouldn't use new players as an example for changes either, the game is already anti new player, there's a lot you need to learn and that includes the characters, even then you can always just play a more simple character like Wilson, Wortox, Wurt, etc.

[_Wendy_carter_]

just wait till they give me a rework and lemi revive Abigail…….