Pro & Wes

[goatt]

Wes is created as a challenge for experienced players. So I wanna discuss how to make him a good and fun challenge for a pro. I hope this discussion can spark more ideas and make Wes a more fun characters for experienced players as many of us gain more skills rather than just a grind.

First question that comes to my head is What qualities should experienced players have?

I think it's knowledge and skill. Knowledge is about the game mechanism and every little details and known strategies created by the community. Skill is about proficiency and muscle memory.

The next question comes is How to design Wes so that it can serve as a test to assess players knowledge and skill while being fun?

The current Wes makes it harder by giving him low stats, making him do everything slower and have higher aggro priorities.

I don't like the design. I think a pro shouldn't be tested by a lengthy exam, and shouldn't be punished by doing everything slower. A good test should create harsher environment and force them to utilize best strategies they know. That design also discourages players to use Wes as non-buff speedrun character. I think a more preferred non-buff speedrun character is Wilson, Willow or Wurt.

I think in order to be a challenge but not grinding kinda challenge, the character should be fairly normal, have no real perk, but do have meaningful challenging downsides. I think a good way to do it is to give his downsides or accidents a funny visual cue at occurrence. The "fun" should not come from Wes' perk, but from the challenge itself. In other word, Wes should be played not because he's innately fun, but because the challenge of playing him is fun. However, being noticeably more grindy takes the fun away for me.

Here is some ideas to assess skills and knowledge:

1. Normal outgoing damage, more incoming damage. In other words, normal character damage, and less defense. Currently, Wes does 75% damage. Bring it to 100% damage is a 33.3% increase (100/75=133%, not 125%). So by bring the damage output and battle speed back to normal, Wes should receive 33% more damage from all mobs to balance out. Chopping, mining and hammering speed should also increase from 75% to 100%, so is the durability cost for all weapons and tools. Skilled players should know how to kite and dodge. It incentivizes kiting and may promote more use of yellow amulet for pro players.

2. Worse random number generator to test players knowledge and combat skill. Create situations that are manageable for pro players, but are bad accidents for new or inexperienced players. It's also in synergy with Wes' life that is plagued by terrible luck. Here is some example:

- Harvesting berry bushes have 2x chance to spawn gobblers which can eat up the rest of the berry bushes without proper setup or caution.

- Having slightly higher chance to spawn Terrorbeaks rather than Crawling Horrors when insane.

- Chopping birchnut trees have 2x chance to spawn Poison ones. Tree trees have 2x chance to spawn treeguards (and more likely the bigger ones?). This would also give him more living log, and is synergy with pro's playstyle. The benefit is getting living logs are less grindy.

- Walking on spider webs have 5% chance to spawn other variation of spiders (not only just warrior spiders). This increase the expected average enemy hp by 0-15%, in other words, spiders will have 0-15% more hp on average. One can of course walk off the web to despawn the spiders to avoid the fight.

- Sharks (rockjaws) are x2 likely to spawn. Gnarwail chance unchanged.

- Crockpot recipes that have 50% chance of Monster Lasagna will have increased chance if cooked by Wes.

- Naughtiness increase 50% faster. Again, more trouble, and speeding up the process of pro items, less grindy.

A balloon will spawn to indicate the occurrence of bad luck every time a RNG event occurs beyond regular chance, for example, a gobbler spawns at chance not at regular x1, but between x1 and x2. This will remind people of Wes' presence and the presence of his "terrible luck", and add a little comedian atmosphere.

3. Hound waves warning. I'm unsure of this one, but I feel Wes should still have some form of hounds warning. Maybe a pantomime as a warning? Maybe spawn and pop some balloons? With a reduced advanced warning time? Maybe half the time? My main concern is accidentally killed red hounds burning stuff at wrong place.

4. Balloons. I think balloons should remain useless and serve only comedian purpose.

 

My motivation behind this post is to find a way to make Wes a challenging character, rather than a grindy character. It's just how I think. What do you think?