Wurt Suggestions + Feedback

[Hornete]

Hey everyone, with the new WX rework we were brought a pleasant surprise with a surplus of changes to Wurt and her character, fixing some important issues here and there. I wanted to give some feedback and suggestions for more suggestions to help improve the character and make her feel fun 

Make the Merm King Inter-shard

Currently, the buffs from the Merm King do not carry into the caves/into other shards. This always personally discouraged me, because it forced me to expend an even more abysmal amount of resources just to get the Merm King's buffs and perks into the caves. I do not personally mind the expensive costs for the first time, I think having a character that takes a while to get set up is a very fun and unique take for a character's design, but having to do it additional times just doesn't feel very fun.

If Wanda can have her teleportation watches be inter-shard, then I think the Merm King's buffs can too.

Expanding the Merm King loot table just a bit further

One of the recent changes had made ocean fish provide a bonus reward to the Merm King! Which is awesome to see! A more extensively mechanic version of fishing should bring more reward, and it was quite unfortunate for a little while to get the same amount of rewards for giving ocean fish as regular fish.

However, I do think there could still be more done to this. The new changes made small ocean fish provide 1-2 gold nuggets as a bonus, while the medium ocean fish provide 2-4 gold nuggets(And the YoT fish give lucky gold nuggets instead)

I don't think it's very fair to put all small fish, and all medium fish under their own umbrella's however. There is a good disparity between all the small fish and all the large fish that it's a little bit unfair to put them all under just two specific rewards of either 1-2 gold nuggets, or 2-4 gold nuggets. Black Catfish, and Dandy Lionfish for example, are much harder and rarer to catch than the Deep bass, the most common medium ocean fish you'll find. But unfortunately, all 3 of these medium ocean fish provide the same reward; 2-4 gold nuggets.

I really think Klei should go nuts with the trading mechanic of the Merm King, especially since it's such a focus with Wurt, and to have a super extensive trading mechanic on a character is a really unique perk and could prove to be really fun. Give a lot of the ocean fish their own loot tables! Maybe giving seasonal fishes to the Merm King could provide some interesting loot, such as fertilizers or even plants like grass/berry bushes for the Bloomfish Tuna/Mudfish, or extra lures for giving the Bitty Baitfish(ya' get it?) or sweets for the Sweetish Fish. Go nuts! You've got a trading mechanic specific to a DLC character. I really think having an extensive amount and large unique pools for each/most of the ocean fishes would prove to be really fun and encourage people to go ocean fishing way more as Wurt.

Another possible suggestion could be to let the weight mechanic of ocean fishes actually come into play for how much loot you get, encouraging the player to sort through their fishes and to use the weighted fish lure. Though this might provide too much of a RNG factor early on if you're not using the weighted lure.

Give the Merm King unique talking animations and sounds

For whatever reason currently, the Merm King doesn't actually have any animations or sounds for when he talks normally, only when he's being fed. While this has no gameplay effect, I'd like to see him get a proper talk animation and sounds like all other NPC's have. It's strange he's the odd one of the bunch that just doesn't have either of the two. You just see plain white text above him with no accompanying sounds or animations besides the idle animation.

Let Wurt use ALL types of fish to craft the Craftsmerm House

Currently, Wurt is only able to use Freshwater fish for the Craftsmerm houses. This always off-put me from the character a tiny bit because it forces you into a bit of a linear playstyle being able to only fish from regular ponds to get the ingredients to craft your merm houses. Ocean fishing, nor eels are able to be used. This is really unfortunate for me because I generally like ocean fishing much more than vanilla fishing, I find it much less tedious, so being forced to use freshwater fish stinks a little bit, it also limits your options in the caves, being unable to use eels.

Spoiler

I had made a concept image a while back on how it could be conveyed to the player they can use any type of fish, and I would really appreciate this change The concept image is of the old Crafting UI, but you get the idea.

 

And those are all the idea I've for now. If you've got any more, be sure to place them in this thread!
 

[Mysterious box]

5 minutes ago, Hornete said:

Let Wurt use ALL types of fish to craft the Craftsmerm House

Currently, Wurt is only able to use Freshwater fish for the Craftsmerm houses. This always off-put me from the character a tiny bit because it forces you into a bit of a linear playstyle being able to only fish from regular ponds to get the ingredients to craft your merm houses. Ocean fishing, nor eels are able to be used. This is really unfortunate for me because I generally like ocean fishing much more than vanilla fishing, I find it much less tedious, so being forced to use freshwater fish stinks a little bit, it also limits your options in the caves, being unable to use eels.

I'd love this change so much and it might even be possible with the new crafting menu.

[ArubaroBeefalo]

yes! merm king could be a great mechanic but feels kinda bland and without any deepness

atleast now we get reeds and gold but has potential for being a yaarctopus 2.0 which was my favourite sw mechanic

PK could have some love too now that i think. The guy still being the same after 10(?) years

[Mysterious box]

I was thinking since fish don't stack anymore maybe we could have it so that craftsmerm houses take 1 fish instead of 2 we could even increase the reed or board count as a compromise.

[pyroisshy]

Electroelys "Mini Wurt Rework" mod has had almost every wurt and merm hot fix in it months before Klei implemented it officially. Klei should just bite the bullet and port the mod to vanilla

[Ohan]

30 minutes ago, Mysterious box said:

I was thinking since fish don't stack anymore maybe we could have it so that craftsmerm houses take 1 fish instead of 2 we could even increase the reed or board count as a compromise.

Or what about a portable tin fishing bin sort of item exclusive  to Wurt? It would function like a tackle box but look like a small glass jar or something. Recipe could include moon glass. Edit: …or a pearl jar lol

it would be the perfect thing to store her pet fish in as well, i always found it odd to carry around a fish out of water in my pockets as a pet… 

even if it held just 6 that would be so helpful i think when making merm huts or moving fish to trade with the king. It probably shouldnt refresh fish freshness like an actual tin fishing bin though. So just a tackle box but for fish with Wurt’s inventory fish lifespan increase buff.

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definitely am in favor of merm king trading system with more depth. The removal of rot in favor of cut reeds and gold for ocean fish was a sorely needed fix. Expanding on this further to yaarctopus levels of interesting trading would be so fun.

Id like to suggest a small damage buff for Wurt again as part of the merm king buff. Like x1.1. These tweaks have finally ironed out inconsistencies between merms and wurt like damage from kelp/durians so it would be nice for the kings buff to increase Wurts damage too like it does for other merms.

[Gods fiddler]

Some time ago I made a post with some suggestions for wurt, i was hopping for a special wurt crafting called fish storage, i still hope they add it.

 

[BiddoBams]

Massive yes on giving more stuff to trade for. Give us a reason to catch the more obscure fish like Sweetish Fish, Fallounder and Corn cod. Speaking of which: Please stop the King from eating the corn-based fish :> I don't think Wurt is all too pleased seeing her King just devour a fish whole.. even if its more corn then fish.

[Anthony_L3hr]

Would it be too much to ask if it were possible to remove the Craftsmerm house penalty during the Winter?

[Hornete]

3 minutes ago, Anthony_L3hr said:

Would it be too much to ask if it were possible to remove the Craftsmerm house penalty during the Winter?

Oh my god, when writing the post. I was thinking I was forgetting something, and you made me remember it.

Yes please!!! I like downsides, but I like them when they're interesting. Locking out Wurt from all her craftsmerm houses during Winter, and lengthening the regen spawn of Guard Merms by 12x is just a very lame and un-interesting downside.

There is nothing interesting about locking out a character from their perks. Playing Willow in any lunacy areas or events is not fun, playing Wurt in winter is not fun.