Ideas for a Walter rework/refresh

[Ev1l]

You read the title, let's go straight to the point. Walter was Klei's attempt to add a ranged character to dst, giving him a slingshot with a vast array of ammo with distinct effects, relatively low health and a penalization for getting hit, and a personal GOODGIRL that doubles as both chester and beefalo to aid him in battle by allowing quick repositioning and support his inventory (since you'll spend a lot of it with rounds). However, due to his implementation, he is deemed as "overbalanced" by a great portion of the comunity, some complaints come from his shooting animation being too slow, others came from his sanity drain by getting hit being too harsh, and the most complaint trait being his "boyscout" character perks, designed to aid his sanity off fights, being a "perk soup" that adds nothing substancial to the gameplay. All together make some people completely ditch some of the core aspects of the character, be it the ranger or even the ranged characteristics, dropping them for sanity foods or use of melee weapons, completely undermining the intent of the charater. With that in mind, I bring some ideas for an open debate and especulation, to maybe inspire Klei to tweak our boy and widen his intended use.

 

"Double PELTrouble"

"I'll call it: 'trusty slingshotwo'. no! Slingshotwin. No..." -Walter

Crafting(ancient pseudoscience station) :

-Trusty slingshot ×1

-gold nuggets ×3

-slurper pelt ×2

This is an idea for a late-game weapon option for Walter, the intent of it is being able to load and fire 2 rounds at a time, being able to mix and match the different ammo types or load 2 damage ones at a time to mitigate his slow shooting animation, freezing rounds should be kept an eye on to tweak if deemed too strong. Slurper pelt was chosen for being hard to achieve and for its stretchy look to be used as the slingshot's holder(slurpers can stretch to fit in Wolfgang's head for God's sake).

 

Stats rework: Health: 75, Hunger 250, sanity 120.

The most essential part of this is the health reduction to disencourage players to attempt melee combat. His sanity decrease is just to reinforce this trait, as if Walter took more than 50 damage while at full sanity, he would go insane. If both those stats would be reduced, his hunger should be increased to balance it out.

 

Woby tweaks: increase in hunger from 50 to 100 while keeping the same hunger drain and values to transform as before. While fed above 50% of her hunger, she wiĺl no longer throw Walter off no mater the damage, however, 50% of the damage taken is drained from her hunger instead. (Sidenote: maybe increase Walters range while on top of her to incentivise her usage more?)

 

Pinetree pioneer hat. 

-This thing... remove it from the game.

-(whisper whisper)

-What? There's already skins for it?

-(whisper whisper)

- 6 O F T H E M ! ? ! ?

Urgh, so we'll have to find another use for it, maybe Adding another function related to his ranger playstile. Increase his range? Decrease his shooting animation? I sincerely don't know and hope someone can give a nice use for it.

 

Now just 4fun I'm adding some other ammo, just to initiate a nice brainstorm.

 

"Explosive rounds"!

"Reminds me of my time at the girl scouts, good times... for me at least..." -Willow

Crafting(×10. Prestihatitator):

-Red gem ×1

-Gunpowder ×1

Deals 70 damage, ignites the target+ any surrounding objects and damages nearby structures. A pretty devastating ammo, a good player should be able to use it effectively to weaken the target beforehand and then give the finishing blow without losing the loot.

 

"Electric rounds"

"They tingle when I hold them" -Walter

Crafting(×10. Alchemy engine): 1× volt goat horn

Deals 40 initial damage, and it doubles against wet targets, ideal for spring(you'll probably be throwing hands at the local warly for it tho).

 

"The lazy shooter"

"Such a waste of gems" -Maxwell

Crafting(×10. Ancient pseudoscience station): 1× OrangE gem

Deals 51 damage. Telepoofs the target to 3 tiles distance from where the shooter is if used to hit a mob(it will be aggro'd on you tho), can also be thrown at the ground to telepoof self. Basically a full on stall round for a hefty price, or a lazy explorer without the walking speed bonus.

 

"Luminous Rounds"

"The power of the sun, in the palm of my hand" -Octo Octavius

Crafting(×10. Ancient pseudoscience station): 1x Yellow gem

Deals 51 damage. While equipped in the slingshot: generates a light radius similar to a lantern/miner's hat, when hitting a target: creates a dwarf star that lasts for 4 minutes, if used on ground the star lasts for 16 minutes. This one would be hard to justify lasting the same as a star caller's staff since it doesn't need living logs to craft, so the timing of the duration of the stars should be discussed.

 

So... what you guys think? I'm eager to find out :P

[Frashaw27]

15 minutes ago, Ev1l said:

being a "perk soup" that adds nothing substancial to the gameplay

Not really. While each of his perks may seem disjointed at first, they actually do help combine to fully flesh out character. For instance, while the tent may at first seem out of nowhere at first, it allows Walter to recover both Health and Sanity, two stats which are specially important as one is essentially linked to the other. While the level of usefulness this provides is dependent on the player, that doesn't mean that it's bad. I don't really get Wanda's Backstep watch, but I'm not going ask Klei to remove it because I don't take advantage of it. While some people may see Walter and think he's just a mismash of a bunch of random ass perks, I personally see him as a sort of pie or burrito where all the ingredients serve to compliment each other, even if they don't stand out on their own. The only one this doesn't really apply to is the bee Allergy, but that's an outlier rather then the standard.

21 minutes ago, Ev1l said:

"Double PELTrouble"

Tbh, this would only serve to make him overpowered imo. The problem with range combat is that the core balance in those types of weapons is the damage vs amount of them. Blowdarts are easily one of the best weapons in DST due to their high damage and lack of needing to be with most enemy's attack ranges to hit, but lack much use outside of a few characters and an especially focused Wickerbottom as the task to mass gather them is a pain to say the least. How this relates to Walter is that part of the reason, that I think anyway, that the rounds are so comparatively weak is because they're so easy to mass craft. Thus, having the ability to shoot two of them might push him over the edge as he might be able to reach the same damage levels as an old Wanda with it, but with much more healing options and lack of being a bad sneeze away from death. Even if you do use other rounds, it's still broken. Freezing and damage an enemy is kinda hard to beat as not only are you getting in some damage, but you're also potentially disrupting the enemy mid attack, essentially making you be able to stunlock or atleast get off huge amounts of damage between attacks. It's a neat idea, but they're a reason why people want the Rate of Fire increased instead of anything else. Rate of Fire buffs his power slightly, adding strength to the shots and/or adding more shots per fire kinda breaks his balance as a semi dedicated range character.

31 minutes ago, Ev1l said:

Stats rework: Health: 75, Hunger 250, sanity 120.

This change is honestly asinine imo. Low Hp like that does indeed discourage melee combat but you also forget that that's not the point of his character. It's to not get damaged, with extra methods to help in that endeavor, not to be strictly ranged. Hp like that should also be restricted to characters who have their downside specifically as low Hp (i.e. Maxwell and Wes) instead of having it tacked on haphazardly to another character. His sanity also needs to fairly high as it allows him to not be punished for making singular mistakes later in the game. Several hits and bites, maybe but I don't think that taking two hits from bosses like Celestial Champion should make me lose all my sanity to the point I have to constantly fight nightmare creatures midfight. There's downside and then there's just pain for the sake of it. I also don't think raising his hunger to be more then that of a literal strong man without some type of compensary hunger drain is all that balanced nor does it help alleviate his downside at all.

1 hour ago, Ev1l said:

increase in hunger from 50 to 100 while keeping the same hunger drain and values to transform as before

I mean I guess?

1 hour ago, Ev1l said:

While fed above 50% of her hunger, she wiĺl no longer throw Walter off no mater the damage, however, 50% of the damage taken is drained from her hunger instead.

She already has enough gratuirty in terms of how much damage she can take before bucking you off. She's not meant to be your main combat mount if you don't plan on constantly avoiding damage. If you really want to increase the damage Walter's ride can endure, just switch to a beefalo. Woby may be an easy creature to be carried on, but she simply isn't the best, and the game doesn't try to make he compete with other Beefs in any stat with the exception of Ride Time.

39 minutes ago, Ev1l said:

Pinetree pioneer hat. 

It already has a use, a pretty good one at it aswell. When you wear it, you take half sanity drain for attacks. This seems useless until you remember that literally any chest armor could be used to compensate the damage reduction lost from not wearing armor on your head. This way you take reduced damage and not take as much sanity damage when you get hit, what a revolutionary concept. I know people don't like this hat for the notion that reducing the effective sanity drain by 60% with a football helmet is better then half that the Pioneer hat provides, but it's not meant to be used alone it's meant to give you the choice between having two useful items in the chest and head slot or sacrificing the head slot to the hat and chest slot to armor so that you reduce the damage as much as possible. Like I said earlier, just because you don't use it, doesn't make it useless.

47 minutes ago, Ev1l said:

"Explosive rounds"!

Literally worse rounds by far simply for the fact you ignite the target, meaning that any support potential immediatly does out the window and means you can't use it if you have structures nearby. Without it, it becomes the best ammo simply due to the fact that Red Gems are easily accruable if you don't make a bunch of Life Giving Amulets or Purple Gems with them, making there very, very easily mass craftable after a simple ruins trip. I think this idea is just bad from a design perspective imo.

50 minutes ago, Ev1l said:

"Electric rounds"

Decent I guess. Although they do immediately be come useless if Volt Goat Jelly is available as any other pellet that does more damage would be more useful on wet targets then this. Nothing special, but has it's uses.

52 minutes ago, Ev1l said:

"The lazy shooter"

Yet another easily accruable gem that can be used to Stunlock bosses and the like until you run out of ammo. Is broken from the offset. I would personally suggest a weaker pellet that always hits it's targets then this invincible type ammo.

54 minutes ago, Ev1l said:

"Luminous Rounds"

This is easily abusable as by simple keeping a slingshot of just 1 pellet of this for infinite light. Doesn't even sound that hard to get for infinite light when compared to the very precise book use Wicker has to do or activating the moon storm or killing the Celestial Champion over and over for crown shards. Yeah going down to the ruins and getting 1 yellow gems to craft this and forget about light for the mass majority of the game is very powerful imo. Even beyond that, Creating morning stars on hit doesn't even sound useful in any capacity. Would be an interesting spectacle, but is not effective at anything in the slightest.

Walter doesn't really need a rework and this attempt to rework him really misses the mark on what makes him balanced. While making him unbalanced does spice up his gameplay, it shouldn't have to be sacrificed for a character who's already fine from a balance perspective. The extra pellet ideas, while interesting either sound broken, boring, or too destructive to use.

Also, this belongs in Suggestions/Feedback.

[Gashzer]

As a Walter main, the slingshot isn't walters primary perk, its woby. The slingshot is more a tool to work alongside melee combat and not to replace it.

I really enjoy how all of Walters perks and downsides flow together, like Frashaw said, Walter loses hp and sanity in combat but his camper tent restores both, cancelling out the downside somewhat apart from boss fights.

And for boss fights, Walters faster cooking speed seems like a perk out of the blue. But sanity is a big issue for walter during bosses and guess whats a great and easily farmed method of gainin sanity during boss fights..... cooked cactus flesh! Walters cookin speed helps to ready them fast for sanity healing during bosses! Which is super nice tbh so thats another perk cancelling his downside!

I really DONT WANT WALTER TO BE RANGED FOCUSED! that would massively take away his flexability as a character. 

Yes a late game faster shooting slingshot made with thulecite would be awesome and few more round types yeah but pls klei no changes to his stats or downside! 

Buffing woby to move faster, having more inventory slots as big woby, walter tracking hunts faster, being able to investigate suspicious dirtpiles while on woby are all the QoL changes i want. Fits the theme of walter as a boy scout with tracking skills.

[loopuleasa]

1 hour ago, Gashzer said:

I really DONT WANT WALTER TO BE RANGED FOCUSED! that would massively take away his flexability as a character. 

Not a Walter main, just a random main, but I have to say I enjoy randoming walter because of the variety he gives.

Walter is simply a soup of perks and he's a varied character.

Walter is not Legolas.

 

After playing for a bit, Walter's personality is summed up as "The Wack of all Trades"

[Ev1l]

Thanks for the replies! I guess I completely missed the mark huh? Although I don’t play Walter myself my brother does, because of his slingshot. When we were playing yesterday we talked about his slingshot being too slow, then we came up with ideas and I posted some of them for fun, guess it is slow for a reason

[Cloakingsumo198]

I just wish the first shot came out faster than the rest so you could quickly get special rounds fired combined with the usual kiting or to just quickly snipe stray birds and butterflies

The bee allergy sucks.

[flamboyant wolf]

13 hours ago, Gashzer said:

As a Walter main, the slingshot isn't walters primary perk, its woby. The slingshot is more a tool to work alongside melee combat and not to replace it.

I really enjoy how all of Walters perks and downsides flow together, like Frashaw said, Walter loses hp and sanity in combat but his camper tent restores both, cancelling out the downside somewhat apart from boss fights.

And for boss fights, Walters faster cooking speed seems like a perk out of the blue. But sanity is a big issue for walter during bosses and guess whats a great and easily farmed method of gainin sanity during boss fights..... cooked cactus flesh! Walters cookin speed helps to ready them fast for sanity healing during bosses! Which is super nice tbh so thats another perk cancelling his downside!

I really DONT WANT WALTER TO BE RANGED FOCUSED! that would massively take away his flexability as a character. 

Yes a late game faster shooting slingshot made with thulecite would be awesome and few more round types yeah but pls klei no changes to his stats or downside! 

Buffing woby to move faster, having more inventory slots as big woby, walter tracking hunts faster, being able to investigate suspicious dirtpiles while on woby are all the QoL changes i want. Fits the theme of walter as a boy scout with tracking skills.

I agree with your points, but I especially want to see the investigation of suspicious dirt piles from big Woby/Beefalo be implemented in the game. sure, it's pretty small, but it would be such a nice little change. 

[Wonz]

On 10/13/2022 at 10:55 AM, Gashzer said:

I really DONT WANT WALTER TO BE RANGED FOCUSED! that would massively take away his flexability as a character. 

He's not flexible. You almost always want to ditch the thing and use melee.

[Mx-Pain]

To be removed from the game.

[goatt]

One QoL I want is to allow ammo to stack up to 99 instead of current 60. The need to carry nearly 10 full stacks of ammo to kill some high hp boss is annoying for many reasons even with the help of Woby who aren't always following Walter closely.

Another is better yield for ammo production. Bee Queen requires 45 marbles, Dragonfly 55, Toadstool 105, cc 74, The whole boss killing game becomes a waiting game if someone prefers to use a range weapon. Context: slingshots can kill the bosses mentioned above. In addition, better yield also reduce the time spent on crafting. The number in my head is 20% better yields. 1 gold, marble, whatever -> 12 ammo, excluding gem ammo.

I have another Qol, but it doesn't concern numbers, so I won't mention it here.

[HowlVoid]

Just delete Walter tbh. I think if we reached the character cap, I rather have Klei work a new character from the ground up and replace Walter. Maybe use the same model so not to scrap the skins.

Make him like an animal rancher or something.

[ArubaroBeefalo]

8 hours ago, goatt said:

Bee Queen requires 45 marbles, Dragonfly 55, Toadstool 105, cc 74

but that is intentional since they cant fight back. Is like killing them with an axe and godmode activated 

[Gashzer]

22 hours ago, HowlVoid said:

Just delete Walter tbh. I think if we reached the character cap, I rather have Klei work a new character from the ground up and replace Walter. Maybe use the same model so not to scrap the skins.

Make him like an animal rancher or something.

Pretty sure Walter is played more than wormwood as per this, so lets delete the overgrown carrot character first 

[goatt]

On 10/15/2022 at 1:59 AM, ArubaroBeefalo said:

but that is intentional since they cant fight back. Is like killing them with an axe and godmode activated 

That’s not “they can’t fight back”, that’s kiting. All kiting have risk of being hit. In the case of Walter, that stake is higher than melee heroes.

 

I understand that’s intentional. And my opinion is to re-examine the numbers. Compared to other characters who put effort in prepare all kinds of fighting related stuff, Walter’s energy is mostly spent on waiting and mining, and waiting for slingshots slow speed animation. 20% improvement is not a lot.
 

Killing something with an axe in God mode is very not fun to me. It should be treated as a shortcoming in character design, not as an advantage, especially because high hp bosses exist.

[Gashzer]

5 hours ago, goatt said:

That’s not “they can’t fight back”, that’s kiting. All kiting have risk of being hit. In the case of Walter, that stake is higher than melee heroes.

 

I understand that’s intentional. And my opinion is to re-examine the numbers. Compared to other characters who put effort in prepare all kinds of fighting related stuff, Walter’s energy is mostly spent on waiting and mining, and waiting for slingshots slow speed animation. 20% improvement is not a lot.
 

Killing something with an axe in God mode is very not fun to me. It should be treated as a shortcoming in character design, not as an advantage, especially because high hp bosses exist.

Nah i dunno if increasing ammo yield is the way, the slingshot by design doesn't draw mob aggro, almost like klei wants you to either have some other player fight melee while Walter gives ranged support or recruit mobs to do the same.

Speaking of... Walter excels at recruiting bunnymen and pigmen, he doesn't lose sanity in caves, has increased exploration speed by 60% on woby, and has extra slots to carry all the boards, carrots and bunny puffs to bring bunnymen to surface. Also he doesn't lose sanity with the one man band!

My go to tactic for killing bee queen as Walter is to build 9 bunnymen hutchs, give them all football helms then have around 200 marble/thulecite rounds. Wait until winter for cane. Recruit bunnymen with one man band, then kite as per normal with mag + cane (Wobys speed boost is too unreliable for bee queen). Bunnymen cut the fight time and marble round cost by half...  and pigskin isn't that important to me, generally rush into thulecite crowns anyway.

Walters slingshot works well to support followers with both damage and slow down rounds allowing your mobs to catch up.

[Cloakingsumo198]

What's the dps on Walter's slingshot?  I get really impatient with how long it takes to kill high health mobs since most of the time is spent relocating than firing

[Mr Giggio]

I would be happy with just a lil bit more of slingshot's attack speed and boom a whole new character xD 

[goatt]

5 hours ago, Gashzer said:

Nah i dunno if increasing ammo yield is the way, the slingshot by design doesn't draw mob aggro, almost like klei wants you to either have some other player fight melee while Walter gives ranged support or recruit mobs to do the same.

Speaking of... Walter excels at recruiting bunnymen and pigmen, he doesn't lose sanity in caves, has increased exploration speed by 60% on woby, and has extra slots to carry all the boards, carrots and bunny puffs to bring bunnymen to surface. Also he doesn't lose sanity with the one man band!

My go to tactic for killing bee queen as Walter is to build 9 bunnymen hutchs, give them all football helms then have around 200 marble/thulecite rounds. Wait until winter for cane. Recruit bunnymen with one man band, then kite as per normal with mag + cane (Wobys speed boost is too unreliable for bee queen). Bunnymen cut the fight time and marble round cost by half...  and pigskin isn't that important to me, generally rush into thulecite crowns anyway.

Walters slingshot works well to support followers with both damage and slow down rounds allowing your mobs to catch up.

Good to know

[Gashzer]

6 hours ago, Cloakingsumo198 said:

What's the dps on Walter's slingshot?  I get really impatient with how long it takes to kill high health mobs since most of the time is spent relocating than firing

With the 51 damage marble rounds, you do the same dps as a spear, which isn't that bad since kiting is much easier with slingshot. Its just abit of a pain farming marble shrubs if you don't use merms to mine them.