Some relatively big changes to improve WX's refresh considerably

[ADM]

WX-78 got to be the first character rework that got exactly what I was looking for from the start of the refresh in some parts, I can only imagine how it's gonna be at the release... and so here's my few concerns I felt I'd recommand changes on and other improvements.

Upgrade Slots :

So yeah having specific upgrade by attributing X slots is just splantastic, it's like a tiny skill tree and it's lovely to see it being just the perk of a character !
BUT, this costed a variety of things from old WX : The overloading and gear upgrading systems.
I wanted to clarify that I'm totally fine to have them gone before I go explaining things again. However if we go compare stuff :

Overloading perks included :

• A nice light source,
• 50% speed boost,
• Freezing immunity,
• An absolutely horrific sound

We could also increase stats to 400 health, 200 hunger, 300 sanity by consuming gears.

If we tried to mimic the good old busted WX-78 with the current circuit items the refresh introduced, we would need :

• Two Hardy Circuits 2.0 (450 HP),
• One Gastroexpansion Circuit (225 Hunger),
• Two Super-Processing Circuits (350 Sanity),
• One Thermal Circuit (as a bonus we can slightly heat things around),
• One Illumination Circuit,
• Three Acceleration Circuits 2.0

That would be equal to 24 upgrade slots for something actually better, but well with 6 slots we actually manage to get about only 1/4 of the whole, and we cannot replicate entirely either one of the old perk or the other.

Again, I'm happy the overloading and gears levelling are gone, one of the reason I was basically never playing WX-78 after few playtroughs in the early state of the game is because despite I'm someone that goofs a lot, I simply found it inconceivable to manage to die with 400 HP when you have literal chests full of gears so easily in this game especially after ruins renewability got introduced. I had very little fun playing them.
(also the overloading sound was the reason of why I started to make mods just to mute it, so you can say thanks to the designer of this sound if you like any of my content)

Because of that gigantic perk change, I don't wish to able to do exactly what WX had before, because if you ask me the character was simply outdated from the way the game evolved, multiplayer and other weird exploits made the overcharging an awkward thing you always had or never depending of how you play and the gears are just too abundant, have too little to do with after some time but being robot food... and seriously when you see the ice boxes full it's hard to consider eating any gear instead of letting everything to spoil with a character that eats regardless of the freshness.

So all that to say, the globally obvious nerf is welcome but with only six slots you accomplish little, certain circuits practically only leave you with having only one space left for a 1-3 slot circuit, there should be a way to increase the amount of slots even if it doesn't last forever.

I could suggest using gears to grant +1 temp slot up to something like 12, which will be consumed when the occupying augment is getting removed with the extractor. They could probably show as blue in the HUD.

 

The Circuits Themselves :

If the previous suggestion sounds a bit odd because of how the circuits and the extractor currently works it's because I wanted to also go over how the items works too.

One thing I have difficulty with is how using the Circuit Extractor just removes EVERYTHING at once, I think it's a bit extreme given they loose 25% by doing so, on top of that crafting them requires Bio Data, while I think the prototyping unlock is a nice idea, the farming of the item sounds rather... meh.
It would save a lot of material (that material being time, because if not the BDs the rest is rather cheap for the most!) if we could decide what to remove.

Some circuits are useful on the instant, but certain... I would love to have them as acquired and keep them longer without having to damage them right as I got enough of the Music Box, Night Vision, Light (gotta keep these 50 bonus HP!) and such...

To solve that, probably extracting the circuits one by one, from the latest installed to the oldest (top to bottom) would improve this fresh gameplay a lot.

As for the circuit perks... they honestly do a lot but certain take just so much space, and it is rather why I suggested the first thing, because I know asking to make some smallers is a bit of an evil move now than the assets are finished... so yeah more space would do fine to improve utilities and choice.

If there was only a couple to change in term of effects... I'd recommand making the sanity regenerations of the chorusbox and super-processor circuits much stronger because realistically they achieve nothing impressive compared to the rest.
The electrification circuit could also maybe use some effect from stacking, even if it had the same treatment as the speed augment and reduce over stacks.
Btw if anyone is scared of having more slots for WX, having past 3 acceleration circuits would really increase the movement speed by something too little to be noticed because the speed increment is reduced between stacks. Just to say.

If that sounds too big of a change, maybe we could continue this recent tendency of making some trinkets useful and allow the wires to repair even very slightly the circuits ? That one is just a bonus but... who knows...

 

Charging Sources :

Am I the only one going pokerface everytime I was getting hit by a charged Volt Goats or hammer a Moose/Goose egg and... expect something ?
Despite it happened to me a dozen times ?

Regardless, I could understand why that wouldn't have been balanced because of what was the payoff, but as today I think it would be rather nice to put everything we can label "electric" on the same level because gaining a charge for circuits and not loosing health from this isn't the same as going weeeeeeeeee for X days.

 

Clockworks :

Webber and Wurt have it easy befriending mobs after so many nice changes now, there are plenty characters that have special neutral interactions with normally hostile mobs but WX-78 really just got away with a slight aggro change with them, that is sad.

I've always considered the surface rooks and such absolutely precious babies to defend because of farm potential but they are absolutely not safe to handle, move and heal.
Changing clockworks to be neutral to their fellow robot would be just great, but we could have more and make WX able to offer them gears for healing and turn them into followers, practically the same is possible from the ruins junks

 

I usually never finish with a tl;dr but I do admit this is chaoticly long so here you go :

• Something to augment the amount of circuit slots, even temporally,
• Circuit Extractor to remove only one circuit at a time, top to bottom,
• Make more sense with electrical damages,
• More clockwork's QoLs,
• If anything can be done in such a way it allows an interesting gears' sink, that'd be appreciated.

And that's about it, I think some other applications would be nice and probably the forums will suggest many good things, but these are the one that to me sounds a bit crucial to have something absolutely enjoyable and fresh.

[Yoyo_Dodo]

In fact, I was thinking exactly the same thing about the limitation of the 6 slots of the electrical charge meter, and I also came to the conclusion of taking advantage of the gears to increase it. Unfortunately, it would no longer be possible to recreate the same intensity of the overloaded system with the number of circuits it requires, but it would be nice if the slots could be increased. I thought that it could be increased, I don't know, for example 2 gears for every 1 new slot, having a maximum limit of 10 permanent slots (6 default + 4 new). and in the case that WX78 dies, a percentage of the gears consumed will be dropped, and the electrical charge meter will return to 6 slots upon revival.

PS, I did love the harmonious sound of the overloaded system.

[Frogzard]

I would go a step further and say we need to be able to choose specifically which circuit we want to remove. I don't really understand what the purpose is of having to remove all of them. If the logic was that they didn't want it to be easy to just put in a circuit and never have to remove it and keep its durability at 100%, then the limited amount of prong space already achieves that by giving an incentive to swap circuits in and out.

As for your comparison with old WX, I never really played old WX so do feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, but as I recall there was no way to make yourself consistently/permanently overcharged. The only ways I know of to summon lightning are using a touch stone and maybe Telelocater staff spam (neither of which are viable to keep overcharge uptime near constant.)I know you didn't make too fine a point on this, but if that's the case then I don't think it's fair to compare the current maximal stat boost with that of an overcharged old WX.

Also, I think that clockwork aggro is fine the way it is. If they were completely neutral to WX, that'd make ruins exploration way too easy. It's already a lot easier now the way it is.

[sudoku]

I think its fine as is right now? I like that you dont just scan a mob once insert the circuit and then never think about it again. Instead its spread out over the course of your gameplay, so you spend time scanning for the circuits you want, equip the one you want in the moment, switch out to another circuit in a different situation, lose durability, eventually you will need to venture out and rescan again. 

Why is scan once and being able to equip most of the good circuits with no real choice or sacrifice good design?

[Curly Bill]

Was thinking of complaining about the accelerator lvl 2 being too good, but wasnt aware of how WX's old overcharge did give 50% speed. Part of me wishes each accelerator lv2 did only 15% each, or make it so it is 25% but it takes up 3. Perhaps it's fine the way it is, but knowing how speed is in this game, i do feel like it alone is really powerful.

The drone circuit and the music box circuit i feel could be a bit better in some way. maybe increase the output but require more slots, as right now, a lot of people dont seem to see any use in it.

Not sure if this is a thing or not, but does two music circuits also make enough noise to speak to all nearby planted crops? because that would actually be pretty useful when you want to circuit up for farming or base construct activities; i feel the music box would have more versatility then.

[FourthLess]

7 hours ago, ADM said:

Changing clockworks to be neutral to their fellow robot would be just great, but we could have more and make WX able to offer them gears for healing and turn them into followers, practically the same is possible from the ruins junks

Anything sounds cool and fine except this. I would take anything other WX being a minion character. 

[loopuleasa]

that's... a long post

 

keep in mind when adding reworks they need to be kept as simple as possible since real noob players have to start comprehending the changes

ease of understanding has to be part of the design

[ADM]

10 hours ago, Frogzard said:

I would go a step further and say we need to be able to choose specifically which circuit we want to remove. I don't really understand what the purpose is of having to remove all of them. If the logic was that they didn't want it to be easy to just put in a circuit and never have to remove it and keep its durability at 100%, then the limited amount of prong space already achieves that by giving an incentive to swap circuits in and out.

That would be even better but I suggested this approach as it would be simpler to go remove things by indexing order than select them between the different game platforms and playability (controller vs mouse vs keyboard), but if that be done fast for anyone while making it selectable, yeah why not.

 

9 hours ago, sudoku said:

I think its fine as is right now? I like that you dont just scan a mob once insert the circuit and then never think about it again. Instead its spread out over the course of your gameplay, so you spend time scanning for the circuits you want, equip the one you want in the moment, switch out to another circuit in a different situation, lose durability, eventually you will need to venture out and rescan again. 

For the most, yeah I think it's one of the most successful rework but it feels less permissive in term of interesting plays than what we got with other reworks by far, I've really tried to keep the base untouched as it seems solid, both the prototyping and upgrading, and look to help allow more from that.

 

5 hours ago, Curly Bill said:

Not sure if this is a thing or not, but does two music circuits also make enough noise to speak to all nearby planted crops?

The range of the chorusbox circuit is identical to the One-man-band, regardless if you have one or two  I made this topic before posting these suggestions so the circuit effects would be known in case I was referring to them, which I didn't really needed to in the end except for a couple.

 

3 hours ago, FourthLess said:

I would take anything other WX being a minion character. 

Totally agreed, but I should have developed a bit more that part probably because that isn't what I was looking for, rather something to help control these rare mobs. I think I rarely managed to keep more than a single rook, bishop and knight at the surface in lategame because they get killed by their terrible spawn locations, surrounding mobs or get their pretty setpieces smashed up by the rooks as I need to pass by juuust a little too close to pick up something. But yeah I wouldn't want WX-78 to be using them for combat since I wouldn't even risk loosing them to start with (also if you compare to the ones in caves, they'd be too dangerous as they attack other followers and players), what I want is better solution to keep them alive by healing and move them to safer space without using odd behaviours. I think that could be done by enabling this change just to surface one, anyway they aren't any rare in caves.

 

3 hours ago, loopuleasa said:

that's... a long post

I make long posts as I'm used to people getting you wrong at the first occasion, which I don't mind, but I really feel sorry for them so I prefer going over things step by step and help understand. Also I believe I make my posts construction enjoyable, but you had a short version at the end as you should expect it too when it has that many points.

[Theukon-dos]

9 hours ago, sudoku said:

I think its fine as is right now? I like that you dont just scan a mob once insert the circuit and then never think about it again. Instead its spread out over the course of your gameplay, so you spend time scanning for the circuits you want, equip the one you want in the moment, switch out to another circuit in a different situation, lose durability, eventually you will need to venture out and rescan again. 

Why is scan once and being able to equip most of the good circuits with no real choice or sacrifice good design?

Unless I missed something obvious, that ain't how it works.

 

Scanning proper creatures prototypes the associated circuit, at which point any Bio-data can be used to craft them. And sense creatures can be scanned once a day, you can easily have an easily-scanned creature or two in pens by your base and build up a surplus of biodata. Such as Moleworms or Voltgoats.

[Seero]

How fast are these speed circuits anyways?

[Yoyo_Dodo]

 

Quote

How fast are these speed circuits anyways?

https://forums.kleientertainment.com/forums/topic/139130-wx-78-circuits-perks/?tab=comments#comment-1558068

[sudoku]

16 hours ago, Theukon-dos said:

Unless I missed something obvious, that ain't how it works.

 

Scanning proper creatures prototypes the associated circuit, at which point any Bio-data can be used to craft them. And sense creatures can be scanned once a day, you can easily have an easily-scanned creature or two in pens by your base and build up a surplus of biodata. Such as Moleworms or Voltgoats.

I dont have access to the beta, i just assumed you had to rescan the correct mob to recraft. 

If thats not how it works and u can just pen a beefalo then im disappointed. Klei comes up with mechanics to encourgae travel and exploration then always gimps themselves by letting you plant the resource at your base. Oh well.