Approach and balancing looks awful for WX rework

[reallychina]

3 hours ago, Frogzard said:

I agree that they could've been more creative with some of the circuits, but I think there's something important you're overlooking. When you say "wx can have even more speed than you but that's it. That's his thing", you're literally ignoring all of his other circuits. His "thing" is not walking faster than you, it's the ability to choose from an array of buffs as fits the situation. Having a speed boost alone isn't special, but being able to choose from other buffs on top of it is special and something that no other character can do. This is a great niche to have for WX because it's fitting for his robotic nature (after all, it's not like humans can just plug in new flesh components to alter themselves.) Again, I absolutely 100% support the inclusion of more circuits that aren't just stat increases or regens, but all of your posts are giving me the impression that you think this rework amounts to nothing more than a walking cane and less clockwork aggro. Even if that was the case, you're still ignoring the fact that he gets that speed bonus without having to take up a hand slot, much earlier than every other character (unless AG drops the lazy explorer, but even then that's RNG and a boon that's not accessible to less experienced players.)

As for how much he adds to a team, I don't think every character has to have the same amount of team play. I think it's OK for some characters to offer less than others, and considering WX's disdain for the so-called fleshlings, it's more than fitting for him to have almost no teamplay.

Also, this is a little off topic, but please please stop using the word QOL to describe his perks. It annoys me to no end. These perks are anything but QOL.

 

 

The other modules are not "buffs" they are existing items that can work full time. That's why i've been naming them QOL, with no ill intention. You can get the same effects just using the respective items with minimal involvement.

 

The thermal modules are thermal stones, the nightvision is moggles, the light one is somewhat of a lantern and the others, except speed are not going to be used anyway in their current form.

These are QOL because it's much easier to get them and keep them active and you get a free item/head/hand slot. But you can get the same effects (sans speed) anyway.

 

The only thing WX does and other characters can not, no matter how many items they stack, is walking faster and mining ruins statues/broken pieces while the clockworks ignore you (and reflect damage which at the moment is pointless).

[Mr Giggio]

7 hours ago, reallychina said:

You can have moggles by day 4 anyway

But cant have night vision WHILE using a helmet/crown and yes, thats relevant.

 

7 hours ago, reallychina said:

you can get thul club by day 10 on average with any char, so theres your speed

10% is far away to provide what 25% does.

 

6 hours ago, reallychina said:

you can have lazy explorer around day 10 too at AG

Yes.

6 hours ago, reallychina said:

WX at this point doesn't add anything to a team

I kinda agree with u tbh except the fact u can always switch thermal stones with ur friends once u have the correct thermostatic chip for the season, so.

 

6 hours ago, reallychina said:

does not have solo capabilities either

Here i have to disagree mate. The speed stack [cane/magi/chip] is a thing for fast travels and just a stack of gears while rushing stuff is so convenient to manage status.

[reallychina]

15 minutes ago, MrSoratori said:

But cant have night vision WHILE using a helmet/crown and yes, thats relevant.

 

No, but you can easily swap helm+ magi or drop lantern or eat a glowberry. You use moggles to get a read of the room and then you turn it off. But you can do ruins without moggles to begin with, exception being wanda/wormwood/warly (where it's advisable to have moggles but not a must) Is permanent moggles better? Yes, but just as qol, it doesn't add something special or new.

 

15 minutes ago, MrSoratori said:

10% is far away to provide what 25% does.

 

Like the moggles thing, 25% is obviously better, but 10% is still speedboost and magi adds to that. And AG has like 1/3 or 14 chance for lazy explorer Then in around 10 days you get cane anyway.

15 minutes ago, MrSoratori said:

I kinda agree with u tbh except the fact u can always switch thermal stones with ur friends once u have the correct thermostatic chip for the season, so.

Which is nice to have but nothing to die for, when you have so many thermal regulation options to begin with. Swapping thermal stones with multiple people will be quite annoying i imagine, unless they come up with a system where you can swap the stone without wx doing something.

15 minutes ago, MrSoratori said:

Here i have to disagree mate. The speed stack [cane/magi/chip] is a thing for fast travels and just a stack of gears while rushing stuff is so convenient to manage status.

I meant that in the context of "besides speed, he has nothing to give him a serious edge. 

 

At this time you're stuck with 3x speed on wx, everything else is a downgrade. The only nice thing is switching to nightvision and 1 speed for a ruin clear while wearing simple helms.

 

The one thing WX really shines at is clearing ruins without aggroing any clockwork. You can even craft at the regular stations guarded by bishops and knights.

[Copyafriend]

43 minutes ago, reallychina said:

Bro thats a lot of words for “grr these circuits bad”

[Seero]

On 4/16/2022 at 11:32 AM, DaZoul said:

I had no choice but to get a slave Wickerbottom

Well to be fair it did fit his personality

[Frogzard]

7 hours ago, reallychina said:

The other modules are not "buffs" they are existing items that can work full time. That's why i've been naming them QOL, with no ill intention. You can get the same effects just using the respective items with minimal involvement.

But they function differently in the sense that they don't take up a head/hand/body slot. A QOL change is a change that just makes the user experience better and has no tangible impact on gameplay (something like a UI change or being able to sort chests.) Here's an example of a tangible difference that his circuits provide: If you equip the moggles circuit you can walk through the oasis desert at night during summer with a walking cane and the desert goggles and a backpack. What other character can get walking cane speed unimpeded at night without having to give up the +8 inventory slots to use a magiluminescence? Or perhaps a more likely example: Being able to fight a moose goose at night while wearing chest armor and an eyebrella. If your response is that those are the same thing, just that WX do it faster, then I'd like to segue that into this:

7 hours ago, reallychina said:

The thermal modules are thermal stones, the nightvision is moggles, the light one is somewhat of a lantern and the others, except speed are not going to be used anyway in their current form.

The difference is you have to stop to keep your thermal stone recharged, you have to stop to gather the resources to craft moggles and keep them fueled, you have to stop to keep a lantern fueled. The difference is that in the long run, these circuits are more time efficient. At the end of the day, any perk on any character boils down to this. What I really want to say is that if you analyze things this reductively, then it doesn't matter what the perk achieves because you're just going to boil it down to being more time efficient, it only matters how interestingly or how creatively it achieves this. In my opinion, the process of acquiring WX's circuits is very unique and interesting. However, what could be more interesting is the way those circuits save you time. That is why I agreed with you that there could be more interesting circuit effects besides just stat increases.

[goblinball]

8 hours ago, reallychina said:

The other modules are not "buffs" they are existing items that can work full time. That's why i've been naming them QOL, with no ill intention. You can get the same effects just using the respective items with minimal involvement.

This mindless logic can be applied to like half the characters and their perks.

Why use WX’s night vision circuit when you can just use moggles? Why use Wormwood when you can just use one man band and the gardeneer hat? Why heal with wortox’s souls when you can just use regular healing food? Why use willow’s lighter when you can just use a torch/campfire? Why use Maxwell’s shadow clones when you can just do the work yourself? Why play Wes? Why use Wurt’s merms when pigs exist? Why use Webber’s spiders when other forms of damage and healing exist? Why use Walter’s slingshot when you can just use darts? Why use wigfrid’s battle helms when other armor exists? Why play dst when you can just go outside? The list goes on and on.

WX’s circuits are not unique, and that’s fine.  There’s nothing wrong with having a character who’s niche is providing more convenient alternatives to pre existing items.

[Parusoid]

On 4/16/2022 at 5:24 PM, ZombieDupe said:

Speed is the main reason I played as WX

If it was truly your main reason then why complain you can't have speed AND something else? You can focus on speed right now no issue

[Left 4 Sharkb8]

22 hours ago, Copyafriend said:

Bro thats a lot of words for “grr these circuits bad”

I think China's point is more that the modules don't seem very creative or interesting, and that they could've made modules more unique and fun, but the existing ones are very simple and not very unique compared to what we have in the game already.

[ZombieDupe]

On 4/16/2022 at 3:57 PM, DaZoul said:

And that synergy, which could only be triggered by a Wickerbottom who cared enough was supposed to be a core mechanic for the character. System overload was WX's most powerful perk (other than gears as an excellent food source for lategame/ruins) and it was locked behind a different character.

I agree that characters should have more synergies that are triggered by other characters, Wurt being able to read Wickerbottom's books is still one of my favorite little details, but I do think that these synergies should remain just that. Little perks, perhaps lore related, that could come in handy. I would even be okay with them being bigger upsides, but certainly not the main power of a character.

As for the End is Nigh! being useless, I agree that that's a problem, I'm hoping Wickerbottom's rework will do something about it.

And about players not working together; I don't really play on pubs that often, but when I do, I usually do see people work together very nicely, maybe you just had unlucky experiences or something, I dunno.

Finally, playing alone should not be secondary. I'm sure there are people out there who just can't play on pubs because of bad internet or just simply preferring to play on their own server, like I do. Whatever the case, there are many solo players, and they should also always be thought of. I don't mean "remove the lazy deserter and the cartographer's desk" but to at least make bigger mechanics available to solo players (this kind of connects to the long standing problem of raid bosses with their Mariana deep pools of hp).

Completely disagree. It has to be something powerful so that players are inherently incentivized to cooperate instead of going to a corner of the map in a multiplayer setting, hiding away from everyone and shunning everyone away. This happens a lot in pubs and it begs the question to me why people even play multiplayer if they are going to play alone pretty much the entire time. If you're just gonna take everything and seclude yourself, there is no reason for you to play in a setting where other players are. If you are doing this, you are inconveniencing yourself and others, this is straight up ******* behavior and anyone can do it and they do.

As for End is Nigh what can be done is for WX to have more options to charge on his own but overall not as effective as cooperating, some simple ones would be giving the telelocator staff much more durability and charged volt goats to charge WX when hit. Then you can charge on your own for about as long if you invest a little more time into the cause or simply ask a nearby Wickerbottom player to help you out (maybe more so if the book had a bit more durability and you didn't need 2 or 3 of them for charge last you a whole season) so long as you can regain sanity after. The recent change of chaud froid and electric milk recharge is very small and specific especially in the context of old recharge as getting those even in small amounts is much more difficult.

I definitely want to point out that overall I liked the old recharge a lot better for what it did. I want it brought back but in a more sensible manner. Maybe the charge itself wouldn't make the player move faster, but would insulate the player and give a very tiny light radius, which could be expanded with modules. Maybe you would normally take even more damage from the rain while being overcharged? So it's a bit more of a risk-reward type of scenario? That would be fun to work with even later in the game. And the module amounts the way they are set just don't work enough to give enough of a different for many things. I think if old charge gave 5 speed boost, there should be one 2-slot speed boost module that does exactly that and not being able to slot more than 1 slot. And for health do a similar thing, 1 module to double his health pool for example.

There is also no point requiring to slot multiple of the same module to get a massive boost in principle. It limits customizability a lot when you can be very powerful in one feature but NOTHING else or useful in 2 or maybe 3 if you're lucky. There are too many modules and variations of the same module set up as if you will ever take use of them. It's nonsense clutter. These modules could be infinite durability or repairable, and require a gear to craft for example the speed boost module, one of which is all you could have and would ever need to reflect more of the old system. Minute additions like a couple dozen health are so pointless even if they take up a single module slot especially when you consider you have ONLY 6 slots to work with. This system could have been made much more simple to understand, having 8 or so modules total, of which you could ever only choose up to 3 or 4 to slot with big changes such that you are willing to sacrifice a little time waiting to re-slot a module, I would really prefer that.

I also not see the point of scanning, it's just another time sink for a character that's supposed to be in general faster than every other character in movement speed. Webber befriending spiders at least made sense and was a little more engaging to do as you had to discover them before you could make more of them, but the ingredient costs for some of the modules for WX are so very like to the scanned creature loot that it becomes a pointless time-sink that could very well be removed. It becomes almost entirely removed besides crafting new modules if they happen to run out of durability for a crafting component of one as you discover all the blueprints. I don't find it fun to scan anything, this is the type of flare to this particular character I do not like because of just how pointless it basically is.

On 4/16/2022 at 7:00 PM, goblinball said:

This seems very contradictory. What if I want to use 3 health circuits or speed circuits? Now I cannot “build however you best like to play as”. Limiting people’s options is the polar opposite of letting them choose their circuits as they please.

 

Because the other circuits have benefits too????

Incorrect. Ideally you would want the 1 module to be about as powerful as the 3 and limit it to that one. Now you have MORE options because you have extra slots to add for something else, like night vision or electric damage to things that hit you.

If I can't have max speed boost and infinite light source akin to the old overcharge at the very MINIMUM after this rework, I can't call this an improvement at all. I add modules, then struggle with putting them in and out with mostly minute changes that seem entirely pointless by comparison. Might as well play as a much better character at this point.

[DaZoul]

1 hour ago, ZombieDupe said:

Completely disagree. It has to be something powerful so that players are inherently incentivized to cooperate instead of going to a corner of the map in a multiplayer setting, hiding away from everyone and shunning everyone away. This happens a lot in pubs and it begs the question to me why people even play multiplayer if they are going to play alone pretty much the entire time. If you're just gonna take everything and seclude yourself, there is no reason for you to play in a setting where other players are. If you are doing this, you are inconveniencing yourself and others, this is straight up ******* behavior and anyone can do it and they do.

yeyea it might have been a little vague, but I would like to see powerful character combos, just not as the main power of a character is all. Winona's generators being an extremely, if not the most effective way to charge WX is a thing I also like

Since you mentioned it again, I'll re-say it as well: I don't have a lot of experience in pubs, I mostly played there when I was starting out, and I hadn't really experienced what you described there. There were always a few people who I never heard of, but usually about 3-4 of us would always hang in some community base.

As for the scanning, I like it. Jimmy can be a bit... odd (classic Jimmy moment) but generally I like it as a concept, and also as balance. Some circuits can be pretty strong, so for example I in my survival world couldn't just dig up a grave for a red gem and boom, immunity to Winter, but rather I had to make just a bit o healing and armor and tank Dfly while Jimmy did his thing. Jimmy ain't a perfect execution of the scanning concept, but he's adorable so I can't be mad.

[loopuleasa]

I swear if I hear another guy want more circuit slots I will cosplay as wendy

[Sapientis]

On 4/16/2022 at 5:32 PM, DaZoul said:

No other way to get system overload

Telelocator staff is a little expensive, but with it you can in fact 

Rushing ruins leaves you with lots of purple gems anyway, so the only problem are living logs (as you'll possibly go insane after getting struck anyway, so the Nightmare Fuel is not an issue).

A WX-78 can still overload himself on demand, restore 83 lost sanity (50 for cast spell and 33 for getting struck), and go to the fight, but the Staff also increases World's wetness, so rain could mess the fight-to-be (also there's no way to get SYSTEM OVERLOAD in caves, as Telelocator Staff only makes some minerals to fall from the ceiling there).

After rework it's still an useful thing to keep in mind, because lightnings restore 100 health to WX-78, lowering his sanity by 33.

ALSO

If you compare Telelocator Staff and Bat Bat you have 4 Nightmare Fuels, 1 Purple Gem vs 3 Batlilisk Wings.

It's 524 hp (if wings are ate) vs 510 hp while a lot more time consuming, so It might be an interesting way of an emergency healing (although rain and huge sanity drop might mess the fight even more than help...).