My controversial balance preferences for maxwell

[Copyafriend]

I am a very firm vocal believer that there is such a thing as too good. I think maxwell passed that point last night. So im going to try to rebalance maxwell the way i would like him to be. You are free to disagree, but i genuinely believe that maxwell is too strong. If you feel the need to cite another character as too strong to compare him too, just dont. It doesnt add anything to the conversation. Maxwell gathers miles better than wurt, and has better minions than wendy. I think thats too strong.

 

Gatherers:

the gatherers as they stand now, are a lot of fun. But they’re really REALLY high utility with little downside. Once your base is kind of set up (day 10ish), there are no advantages any character has over him in terms of gathering. I dont necessarily have a problem with that, but i think its all a little too cheap. it takes 6 workers to chop and harvest an entire forest completely, includint digging the stumps and gathering the resources. So instead of nerfing this fun gathering, i think the cost should go up.
 

I think it should cost 10% of the book’s durability per puppet summoned. Combat or worker. 
 

now i know, thats a pretty strong nerf, but consider the following:

The only downside for maxwells summons is that it costs nightmare fuel to hire them, and they work in a (honestly pretty large) circle that they wont leave. Neither of those have that much impact as it is right now. You can honestly summon freely to the point where i summoned 6 warriors on a tier 1 den just to see it happen, and lost pretty much nothing. (1 nightmare fuel and some change)
 

he can gather better than any other character, so it seems reasonable that it should be at least reasonably expensive. Its still far cheaper than it once was. 

this change would mean it now costs  2.5 nightmare fuel to summon the full 6 workers, not that you’d need to ofc. 2 or even 3 workers would still be more efficient than the workers he had before while being cheaper too, able to chop and switch to digging freely and also gather the materials they created. i think that it would be a fair price. The workers are a bit too cheap.

the spells:

i like them, not much else to say. The  pillaes are hard CC better against strong single targets, and the trap is great nightmare fuel farming utility and soft cc against a hoard, panicking them allowing many free hits and disengaging them like walters poop pellets. 
honestly double their price too, or dont im not too strongly opinionated one way or another. They’re just very strong and useful spells. 
 

the warriors:

now THIS is a hot spicy take:

nerf them into the ******* DIRT.

30 max damage taken. They can be three hit. 
 

4 max.

as the strongest gatherer. He does not.

does NOT.

Need a strong combat summon. He can have six of them, that’s enough for ruins rushing with EASE. Pre buff i was able to take down knights and rooks with 4 easily without helping

they dont need to be able to stand up to bosses. Most minions cant. I dont want them to run in and get one shot, but they’re extra damage, not the thing that kills bosses more efficiently than making a darksword and perfectly dodging every hit coming from the bosses.
 

you probably dont agree, and thats okay. But honestly im tired of the serious power creep going on. The update has made him way stronger already, he didnt need the combat buff too.

[Dr. Safety]

As a Maxwell main who usually has strong bias towards characters I like (to a fault sometimes when it comes to balancing), I totally agree. Haven't actually had a chance to try out Maxwell after the latest patch, but his duelists were never meant to be able to solo bosses without any input from Max besides spamming more minions down. They kinda flooded the duelists with protective upsides when they would still be borderline OP if only half the changes were implemented. That's what betas are for though, just gotta find the balance.

[Gi-Go]

12 minutes ago, Dr. Safety said:

Haven't actually had a chance to try out Maxwell after the latest patch.

No further questions. 

[Capybara007]

how about a more creative way of nerfing him, maybe make it so when he is insane more nightmare creatures than average haunt him, aswell as actually reducing your sanity when it is capped

as for the duelist i think increasing their defense for less damage is a fair trade, that way the battle take a little bit longer, and added to my first suggestion, where more creatures spawn for maxwell, you have a character that has to run away from creatures and timing correctly when to summon more duelist that kill your foe

thats just my idea, klei may do it differently

[Copyafriend]

15 minutes ago, Gi-Go said:

No further questions. 

He doesnt need to play it to think “the shadows shouldn’t solo deerclops” yeesh

[Gi-Go]

1 minute ago, Copyafriend said:

He doesnt need to play it to think “the shadows shouldn’t solo deerclops” yeesh

Is this seriously supposed to be impressive? They soloed boss that dies from campfire spanking? 

[arturako22]

1 hour ago, Copyafriend said:

I think it should cost 10% of the book’s durability per puppet summoned. Combat or worker. 

I'd say I agree though it's only relevant for people spawning 5 shadows for any job even if it only takes 1 or 2, it's not that hard to get nightmare fuel either.

1 hour ago, Copyafriend said:

i like them, not much else to say. The  pillaes are hard CC better against strong single targets, and the trap is great nightmare fuel farming utility and soft cc against a hoard, panicking them allowing many free hits and disengaging them like walters poop pellets. 

I'm having a hard time finding a real use for the trap, pillars usually work better for CC.

The pillars also have various issues that need to be fixed such as rendering the eye of terror useless making it unable to hit you at all with the dashes but you still being able to hit it.

Another problem I've found is that if you constantly lock the dragonfly in the pillars when she tries to spawn lavaes she will do absolutely nothing while trapped, which allows her to be easily killed.

[Gi-Go]

1 minute ago, arturako22 said:

The pillars also have various issues that need to be fixed such as rendering the eye of terror useless making it unable to hit you at all with the dashes but you still being able to hit it.

Another problem I've found is that if you constantly lock the dragonfly in the pillars when she tries to spawn lavaes she will do absolutely nothing while trapped, which allows her to be easily killed.

Stuns stun enemies. As they should. 

[Copyafriend]

18 minutes ago, Gi-Go said:

Is this seriously supposed to be impressive? They soloed boss that dies from campfire spanking? 

Its a benchmark. It doesnt have to be impressive that a player can do it, the SUMMONS can do it. Abigail cant even nearly solo deerclops, wurts summons dont, webbers can if he has a pair of campfires because they can heal themselves if they arent frozen. Actually i cant think of any summons able to solo bearger other than maxwells. But thats not impressive ofc because you can beat bearger yourself huh?

 

Note: solo means without assistance, abigail can outheal deerclops if healing is applied

[Gi-Go]

7 minutes ago, Copyafriend said:

Its a benchmark. It doesnt have to be impressive that a player can do it, the SUMMONS can do it. Abigail cant even nearly solo deerclops, wurts summons dont, webbers can if he has a pair of campfires because they can heal themselves if they arent frozen. Actually i cant think of any summons able to solo bearger other than maxwells. But thats not impressive ofc because you can beat bearger yourself huh?

Ugh. Bring out the big guns to make a point. I killed ENRAGED KLAUS using only Maxwell's summons. Now that?

Decrease their number? Just gonna waste my time more, bosses will still die without me hitting them. Increase their price? Nightmare fuel is self sustaining. Make them die easier? I can summon them forever. 

What does your nerf suggestion accomplish? Nothing at all. 

[dois raios]

5 minutes ago, Copyafriend said:

Note: solo means without assistance, abigail can outheal deerclops if healing is applied

note: maxwell needs to spawn more duelists, 6 cant kill deerclops in a roll

 

Btw, I cant lie, the new duelists are good, I hope they get stronger, they have cd to attack, also it is only 40 dmg, I am not a Maxwell main btw, but I hope maxwell mains are enjoying the beta,  because I am enjoying so much it, Maxwell finally the king of constant, big day in beta.

I hope he doenst get many changes to a point I will lose interest in him again. But if it happens, it is okay, we dont have to enjoy playing as all characters, some just dont match my playstile and it is totally ok.

[Copyafriend]

11 minutes ago, Gi-Go said:

Ugh. Bring out the big guns to make a point. I killed ENRAGED KLAUS using only Maxwell's summons. Now that?

Decrease their number? Just gonna waste my time more, bosses will still die without me hitting them. Increase their price? Nightmare fuel is self sustaining. Make them die easier? I can summon them forever. 

What does your nerf suggestion accomplish? Nothing at all. 

You’re so right, we’ll just give each and every single character a gun that does 1000 damage and costs a rock to reload 10 shots because that’d be be fun, and it wont waste our time.

 

Yeah, we nerf things that let people do something too easily. Maxwell is able to kill bearger straight from spawn with only his book. 
 

maybe he shouldn’t be able to do that, if they die easier then bearger will need more effort to be killed. The shadows shouldn’t be meant to be used as a instawin button. 
 

yeah if you send enough pigs 1 at a time to fight deerclops EVENTUALLY they’ll win, but the goal is to disincentivize sitting back and pressint a button until the enemy dies. If its more expensive it’ll take longer to gather the resources, if he cant have as many the fight will take longer, if they die faster you’ll need more of them. The goal is to make people not want to just use his shadows, the point is that the shadows are here TO HELP, not do the fight for you. 
 

Its like im talking to a wall.

klei SHOULDN’T ENCOURAGE PLAYERS TO ONLY SUMMON SHADOWS BECAUSE IT IS BORING.

 

no, you cant say its fun to you, its fun because its new. It will not be fun when its old, because pure summoning 1 thing until the enemy dies will never be fun.

 

I know, my favorite class in every arpg is the summoner or the necromancer, or the beast tamer, whatever lets me sit back and let something fight for me.

 

but despite it being my favorite trope, half of them fall into the exact same stupid trap.

the summon. Cant be. all that needs to happen.

Unless it turns tactical where i manage my resources and create a specific team and buff them, etc etc. 
 

it always turns into “can i summon enough to kill them before they can kill me”

which is BORING. 
 

do you know what else gets boring fast? 
Summoning 1 thing and watching it tear through every enemy repeatedly.

Like it becomes a “walk up, press button, watch murder” repeat simulator. 
 

This is literally my FAVORITE niche, all of my favorite games have this in some capacity, i know what im talking about when i say this **** gets BORING if it’s implemented EXACTLY how maxwell is implemented.

[Gi-Go]

6 minutes ago, Copyafriend said:

You’re so right, we’ll just give each and every single character a gun that does 1000 damage and costs a rock to reload 10 shots because that’d be be fun, and it wont waste our time.

 

Yeah, we nerf things that let people do something too easily. Maxwell is able to kill bearger straight from spawn with only his book. 
 

maybe he shouldn’t be able to do that, if they die easier then bearger will need more effort to be killed. The shadows shouldn’t be meant to be used as a instawin button. 
 

yeah if you send enough pigs 1 at a time to fight deerclops EVENTUALLY they’ll win, but the goal is to disincentivize sitting back and pressint a button until the enemy dies. If its more expensive it’ll take longer to gather the resources, if he cant have as many the fight will take longer, if they die faster you’ll need more of them. The goal is to make people not want to just use his shadows, the point is that the shadows are here TO HELP, not do the fight for you. 
 

Its like im talking to a wall.

klei SHOULDN’T ENCOURAGE PLAYERS TO ONLY SUMMON SHADOWS BECAUSE IT IS BORING.

 

no, you cant say its fun to you, its fun because its new. It will not be fun when its old, because pure summoning 1 thing until the enemy dies will never be fun.

 

I know, my favorite class in every arpg is the summoner or the necromancer, or the beast tamer, whatever lets me sit back and let something fight for me.

 

but despite it being my favorite trope, half of them fall into the exact same stupid trap.

the summon. Cant be. all that needs to happen.

Unless it turns tactical where i manage my resources and create a specific team and buff them, etc etc. 
 

it always turns into “can i summon enough to kill them before they can kill me”

which is BORING. 
 

do you know what else gets boring fast? 
Summoning 1 thing and watching it tear through every enemy repeatedly.

Like it becomes a “walk up, press button, watch murder” repeat simulator. 
 

This is literally my FAVORITE niche, all of my favorite games have this in some capacity, i know what im talking about when i say this **** gets BORING if it’s implemented EXACTLY how maxwell is implemented.

Man, your problems are in your head. If you think shadows doing bosses for you is boring then simply fight bosses yourself. Don't summon them, summon less of them, summon all of them but join in on the fight or just don't play Maxwell. Who is stopping you? 

Also, stop killing beargers. Then you might finally see Maxwell as something more than a wood gatherer. 

[Copyafriend]

5 minutes ago, Gi-Go said:

Man, your problems are in your head. If you think shadows doing bosses for you is boring then simply fight bosses yourself. Don't summon them, summon less of them, summon all of them but join in on the fight or just don't play Maxwell. Who is stopping you? 

Also, stop killing beargers. Then you might finally see Maxwell as something more than a wood gatherer. 

Dude.

 

the entire point flew entirely over your head. Or you’re purposefully ignoring it.

 

i LOVE summoning things to help me fight.

maxwells ability to summon things to kill it for him will kill interest in the long term.

 

pay attention next time.

[Trevindo]

8 minutes ago, Gi-Go said:

Man, your problems are in your head. If you think shadows doing bosses for you is boring then simply fight bosses yourself. Don't summon them, summon less of them, summon all of them but join in on the fight or just don't play Maxwell. Who is stopping you? 

Also, stop killing beargers. Then you might finally see Maxwell as something more than a wood gatherer. 

I think you really don't understand the importance of balancing strategies within a survival game, or how it affects the diversity of interpretations within the game. But anyway, I don't even care about your opinion, with the amount of post Klei is getting to fix this, soon they'll work in the shadows.

[Gi-Go]

31 minutes ago, Copyafriend said:

the entire point flew entirely over your head. 

No, I think MY point flew over your head. Yours is loud and clear. 

You want to fight bosses alongside your shadows? And who is stopping you? Go for it my man. 

[astroapyr]

2 hours ago, Copyafriend said:

Gatherers:

the gatherers as they stand now, are a lot of fun. But they’re really REALLY high utility with little downside. Once your base is kind of set up (day 10ish), there are no advantages any character has over him in terms of gathering.

It depends, if you are talking about mining and/or woodcutting Warly and Woodie still excel, but if you are talking about 'picking' then you are right, and I agree with you, it's a good little thing that's makes him unique. I do think too that it is too cheap.

 

2 hours ago, Copyafriend said:

I think it should cost 10% of the book’s durability per puppet summoned. Combat or worker. 

Yeah, I believe that duelists' cost is the real problem here, the way it is now is too easy to swarm boasses, they should be more expensive.

You can summon 20 duelists from a 100% Codex or 5 duelists from a single nightmare fuel (1 nightmare fuel = +25% Code Umbra). It should be expensive enough for you to go through early game as preparation for bigger fights. What about 20% from Codex for duelists and 10% for gatherers? This way you get 5 duelists from a 100% Codex or 1.25 duelists for each nightmare fuel and you get 10 gatherers from a 100% Codex or 2.5 gatherers for each nightmare fuel.

It's either this or decrease the quantity of dielers you can spawn because I think the real problem is the cheap swarming.

[Copyafriend]

4 minutes ago, Gi-Go said:

No, I think MY point flew over your head. Yours is loud and clear. 

You want to fight bosses alongside your shadows? And who is stopping you? Go for it my man. 

Yeah you clearly actually did miss my point. 
 

my point is that if you can kill the boss without fighting then most players will. I’ll quote the phrase “given the opportunity, players will optimize the fun out of their own game”

Given the opportunity to kill the boss 100% risk free and honestly cheaper than joining in, players will generally speaking, prefer to do it the efficient way, not necessarily the way that they would enjoy more. 
 

the shadows will make maxwell LESS fun, because its cheaper to just let them do it, rather than joining in and risking your resources to have a good time fighting deerclops.

[Gi-Go]

39 minutes ago, Trevindo said:

I think you really don't understand the importance of balancing strategies within a survival game, or how it affects the diversity of interpretations within the game. But anyway, I don't even care about your opinion, with the amount of post Klei is getting to fix this, soon they'll work in the shadows.

I think nerf suggestions in this thread objectively suck and will achieve nothing positive.

There was a guy who offered Maxwell's clones to drain maximum hp, and while I'm not sure how I feel about that idea - it's an actual interesting idea that can change gameplay. 

13 minutes ago, Copyafriend said:

Given the opportunity to kill the boss 100% risk free and honestly cheaper than joining in, players will generally speaking, prefer to do it the efficient way, not necessarily the way that they would enjoy more. 

" i want to have fun but I must play efficiently instead" - said noone ever.

[Arthas Durotan]

How about giving him a condition to summon fighters? Rather than nerfing fighters back to hell.

 

Everytime a NC dies near maxwell books get a charge that stacks at 10(every book gets a stack?) Terrorbeaks either giving multiple charges or summoning buffed fighters(damg, health, atkspd etc.)

You only need fuels for workers but fighters need both fuel and a charge to summon.

While it might not count as a nerf it should take out the whole braindeadsummonkillingmachines

as much as I like it just the way it is...

 

 

[Copyafriend]

34 minutes ago, Gi-Go said:

I think nerf suggestions in this thread objectively suck and will achieve nothing positive.

There was a guy who offered Maxwell's clones to drain maximum hp, and while I'm not sure how I feel about that idea - it's an actual interesting idea that can change gameplay. 

" i want to have fun but I must play efficiently instead" - said noone ever.

I’ll just let u read up on it

https://vizlabstudios.com/resource-management-optimizing-the-fun/

[edulopes]

1 hour ago, Copyafriend said:

You’re so right, we’ll just give each and every single character a gun that does 1000 damage and costs a rock to reload 10 shots because that’d be be fun, and it wont waste our time.

 

Yeah, we nerf things that let people do something too easily. Maxwell is able to kill bearger straight from spawn with only his book. 
 

maybe he shouldn’t be able to do that, if they die easier then bearger will need more effort to be killed. The shadows shouldn’t be meant to be used as a instawin button. 
 

yeah if you send enough pigs 1 at a time to fight deerclops EVENTUALLY they’ll win, but the goal is to disincentivize sitting back and pressint a button until the enemy dies. If its more expensive it’ll take longer to gather the resources, if he cant have as many the fight will take longer, if they die faster you’ll need more of them. The goal is to make people not want to just use his shadows, the point is that the shadows are here TO HELP, not do the fight for you. 
 

Its like im talking to a wall.

klei SHOULDN’T ENCOURAGE PLAYERS TO ONLY SUMMON SHADOWS BECAUSE IT IS BORING.

 

no, you cant say its fun to you, its fun because its new. It will not be fun when its old, because pure summoning 1 thing until the enemy dies will never be fun.

 

I know, my favorite class in every arpg is the summoner or the necromancer, or the beast tamer, whatever lets me sit back and let something fight for me.

 

but despite it being my favorite trope, half of them fall into the exact same stupid trap.

the summon. Cant be. all that needs to happen.

Unless it turns tactical where i manage my resources and create a specific team and buff them, etc etc. 
 

it always turns into “can i summon enough to kill them before they can kill me”

which is BORING. 
 

do you know what else gets boring fast? 
Summoning 1 thing and watching it tear through every enemy repeatedly.

Like it becomes a “walk up, press button, watch murder” repeat simulator. 
 

This is literally my FAVORITE niche, all of my favorite games have this in some capacity, i know what im talking about when i say this **** gets BORING if it’s implemented EXACTLY how maxwell is implemented.

Okay you do say That is boring, i find using Wanda with Shadow armor and click Op and boring so klei should nerf It?

That IS not the way, Maxwell is in a good spot, he dosent need buffs or nerds If he dont chance more, but the clones are finally usable.

O find ex boring because he is Just stat changes, he dosent have many real perks like Maxwell, should se get him a car ir a bazooka? 

It is hard to Tell boring from Just, and MAXWELL finally feel justified

Lost most of his gather Power, won a New gatter Power and finally some Boss figth potencial, because earlier It would not make Sense tô bring him tô Boss figths, i am a Maxwell main, and he Just feels a worse Wilson Just look at bom HE needs those Shadows tô bem diferent from him...

 

[Copyafriend]

21 minutes ago, edulopes said:

Okay you do say That is boring, i find using Wanda with Shadow armor and click Op and boring so klei should nerf It?

That IS not the way, Maxwell is in a good spot, he dosent need buffs or nerds If he dont chance more, but the clones are finally usable.

O find ex boring because he is Just stat changes, he dosent have many real perks like Maxwell, should se get him a car ir a bazooka? 

It is hard to Tell boring from Just, and MAXWELL finally feel justified

Lost most of his gather Power, won a New gatter Power and finally some Boss figth potencial, because earlier It would not make Sense tô bring him tô Boss figths, i am a Maxwell main, and he Just feels a worse Wilson Just look at bom HE needs those Shadows tô bem diferent from him...

 

Man in not trying to be mean to you, but im not sure exactly what you’re trying to say.

i caught you saying you find wanda boring so should klei nerf them, and the answer is obviously not. 
 

 But those arent the same situations. Wanda specifically needs careful health management to survive and deal high damage, maxwell just clicks a button repeatedly. Wanda is inherently interesting and maxwell is inherently boring.

[edulopes]

8 minutes ago, Copyafriend said:

Man in not trying to be mean to you, but im not sure exactly what you’re trying to say.

i caught you saying you find wanda boring so should klei nerf them, and the answer is obviously not. 
 

 But those arent the same situations. Wanda specifically needs careful health management to survive and deal high damage, maxwell just clicks a button repeatedly. Wanda is inherently interesting and maxwell is inherently boring.

Just get 2/4 clocks 1 alarming 3 Shadow suits and you can do bq df and Klaus in under 7 minutes

Watch An Brazilian streamer named thalz he kill ALL of those Bosses with no danger of dying in the spam of an single músic

11 minutes ago, Copyafriend said:

Man in not trying to be mean to you, but im not sure exactly what you’re trying to say.

i caught you saying you find wanda boring so should klei nerf them, and the answer is obviously not. 
 

 But those arent the same situations. Wanda specifically needs careful health management to survive and deal high damage, maxwell just clicks a button repeatedly. Wanda is inherently interesting and maxwell is inherently boring.

Just get 2/4 clocks 1 alarming 3 Shadow suits and you can do bq df and Klaus in under 7 minutes

Watch An Brazilian streamer named thalz he kill ALL of those Bosses with no danger of dying in the spam of an single music.

Shadow armor allows wanda tô Just F SPAM retreat and regen life até 0 cost

[Copyafriend]

Just now, edulopes said:

Just get 2/4 clocks 1 alarming 3 Shadow suits and you can do bq df and Klaus in under 7 minutes

Watch An Brazilian streamer named thalz he kill ALL of those Bosses with no danger of dying in the spam of an single músic

Yeah if you get the best armor in the game with one of the highest dps characters with a skilled player they’ll make it look easy.

i can do the same thing with wolfgang a hambat and football helmets. 

well maybe not bee queen im not great at her.

 

my point is you’re comparing someone who is probably amazing at the game who is probably speedrunning it with endgame gear, and comparing it to maxwell who spawns with enough shadow fuel to kill dragonfly day 1 without even helping