My Problem With The Maxwell Update

[RatherRabbit]

Is really simple, honestly. But I've only just put my finger on it.

I feel like they've changed his playstyle entirely.

For all six years of Don't Starve Together, Maxwell has been a resource gatherer. He's been a base-builder. And the sudden lurch into having all these combat-focused abilities feels like abandoning that. I know a lot of players are content with that. They like fighting bosses. And I know that's kind of the direction the game's been going lately, more focus on bosses.

And to be clear I don't necessarily think that's a bad thing. But all the other character updates gave the characters more ways to do that new function while ALSO giving fans of the original playstyle a new, fun way to keep doing their own thing. The way things are now, I feel like more ''casual'' players like myself, who like the resource-management and base-building, are being abandoned. The minions feel like they've been majorly stripped down and thrown aside in the effort to change Maxwell into a more combat viable character which. Is not what I, and I think many others, WANT from him. If you want to do a magic fighter, Wickerbottom, Wendy, and Wanda already have you covered.

"But the hat! But the chest!" Some people might say. And I agree, those are nice. But not nice enough to trade the way the minions used to work for this new, spammy version. In fact I feel like it'd work BETTER if I could still march my army through an entire rocky biome in one go.

I get a lot of people didn't like "AFK Maxwell" but I feel like there has to be a way to eliminate that while also not making the minions so micro-managing-y.

Also I want to clarify that when I say I'm ""casual"" I don't mean I'm bad or new. I've been playing Maxwell for four years and have over 1k hours in game. I'm not a newbie. It's just not my playstyle. I don't like combat, so I picked a main that didn't do much combat. The switch is very frustrating for me and I think that's not something to be ignored the way it is now.

I'm sorry this is all over the place, and I'm sorry I don't have much to offer in way of solutions. I'm not a game developer, after all. I'm a player. All I can really talk about is my own personal playstyle, and that the way Maxwell was fit that better, which is why I mained him.

[Hornete]

At first when the update released, I was a bit put off by the general concept. I also liked this character the longest time mostly because of their ability to move around with their minions, so when the rework entirely scrapped the follower shadows in favor of a temporary stationary minion, I was really put off by it.

After playing the rework a lot though, I really like it and I think his minions, both duelist and gatherer are tons better and more fun to use than before.

I understand your worry about Maxwell focusing on being a combat character, that's something I kind of disliked too and I had hoped there'd be one or two more spells unrelated to combat (But the community obsessed over combat a lot during this rework, and I think that kind of lead to Klei focusing on the combat aspect. Which I can see how that would be a bit disappointing for some.)

Despite that one nitpick though, I still really like the rework and I couldnt have asked for much else. Those are my two cents on the rework, but I absolutely understand where you're coming from in your post.

[Seig Xeon]

His ability to just clear the rocky/mosaic biome is definitely weaker, but boy it has been such a game changer going to base, seeing all my grass/twig/marble/tree farms ready for harvest, and I just plop down servants while I just do other stuff. It's such a game changer to me, and I love this so much.

I'd say his gathering ability has probably increased overall, but it does suck that I now make a pickaxe in the earlygame to get my gold. Once I get past those first couple days though, I think I get over not having mobile servants. That, and how if im not careful they done gone and wrecked Glommers statue or something else.

[Master_NiX]

Pretty sure when we're talking about resource management, new maxwell wins easily when not counting boulders.
Rocky fruit replace whole boulder farm anyway, still...
Dont wanna farm shadows? Sure, just kill rabbits.
Destroyed the forrest but lazy to pick up? Easy, call some shadows and do some stuff while they gather, come back later for resources.

New Maxwell is definitely improved again (that's actually 2rd time he got changed), Permashadows were always causing troubles due to their desire to chop anything in sight.

[Gi-Go]

Maxwell's playstyle was always to use bots instead of friends. And it stayed that way. 

[ShadowDuelist]

36 minutes ago, Master_NiX said:

Permashadows were always causing troubles due to their desire to chop anything in sight.

This.

The old shadow workers were better in the very early game only, when you are low in resources and there are very few things that can attack you , but then they were incredibly annoying afterwards:

• As soon as you spent your fuel and tools, they were either killed by treeguards or a hound wave started its warning 10 seconds after the summon. Current ones are disposable, even if treeguards get them, you can instantly and cheaply make more.
• They destroyed all decorations, partially grown marble trees, partially grown trees, you name it. Current ones have their work area perfectly limited so they don't cause unnecesary destruction.
• They would die from cave ins, frogs, or any other tiny damage while you were relocating them. It is much better to just spread them on the areas where works needs to be done, and then supervise what they did while you were working in other things.

Honestly to me they were infuriating, the new Maxwell is 10x better. And it comes from a person that learned the ropes of the game with Maxwell, mostly playing him since 2016 till 2019 (When the Woodie rework appeared)

My name in the forums started as a joke, being the duelists probably the worst and weakest summon/creature in the game. Seeing them as useful as they are now makes me really proud and happy, feels like the end of a long road.

[Mike23Ua]

Am I literally the only one who never saw Maxwell as a Gatherer character? But- You also heavily underestimate the ability to cut out massive amounts of time by simply teleporting what you want through Minecraft like Ender-Chests across the map.

Sure, maybe you lost the ability to walk through a rock biome and let workers quickly destroy everything (Merm Folk Good Now Florp!) but what you gained was saving yourself time having to haul all of that back to base.

In a Coop game it allows you to be on one side of the game world and literally provide resources to someone else, I guess it’s not very useful in Solo play.. but with someone on the other end pulling resources out to use- It’s game changing.

I also don’t really view Shadow Sneak as a Combat ability, but rather.. as a Nightmare Fuel trigger, which.. is the stuff you’ll need to use to summon more minions in more locations to gather stuff for you now that they don’t decimate the entire biome.

In short: You now need to actually summon more minions, but they gave you a tool that can be used to gather the resource needed to summon more minions- It balances itself out, even if you see it as a nerf.

[ThymeSpirit]

Being a gatherer never really fit Maxwell's character. He's a Codex Umbra user, and the fact that the only practical implication of his powers was gathering resources just made no sense. He even calls one of Wicker's farming books "a waste of magic" or something along the lines, yet he only used his magic to gather wood? Ridiculous. I'm glad he got other abilities. He's still a good gatherer, and the laziest one too, as you don't even need to pick up items yourself. His magic hat helps with holding all those gathered resources, and if you have a friend at the base, you don't even have to go there to drop them or cook food. And no one is forcing you to fight bosses as Maxwell (or any other character) if you don't like it. The duelists and crowd control spells are useful against regular mobs too, and there is a new method of farming nightmare fuel using rabbits and shadow sneak useful for early game and people who don't like being insane and don't go to the ruins.