Is Don't Starve Together suffering from power creep?

[GamePlayer42]

Over recent character additions and updates, things are seeming to get better and better with every new update, but a fear for some could be the power creep thats been increasing with new item, weapon or character drops. Do you agree? Do you disagree? let me know.

[Dextops]

i think the opposite, i feel like old items are better than the new items being added which causes a ton of problems

[Mike23Ua]

I think Klei’s biggest problem right now is adding items that ultimately have none, or next to no practical use.

Example Umbralla- Useage: Protection from Acid Rain, That’s literally ALL its good for.. 

Great if we had an absolutely massive new Amazonian Rainforest biome to go explore out at sea somewhere (think an island similar in size to lunar island or a large swamp marsh) you’d need the acid protective Umbralla to traverse & explore.

Unfortunately: It has very little use.

In one of Klei’s trailers we see Charlie use the Tragic Torch to consume Gashalts into the torch which changes the flame in the torch to reveal the eye hiding in the Moon in the sky.

It seems like a No Brainer to add an upgradable tragic/torch Item that reveals invisible dangers, but for some reason or another Klei hasn’t done this yet.

[Shosuko]

With reworks?  Yes.  Generally the power went up across the board, especially with certain characters, but there are plenty of neutral re-works if you don't want to play something too powerful.  With new items no.  Mostly Klei keeps things pretty power neutral by adding effects instead of scaling raw stats.  Although with the new arc this may change as I believe their intention was to START these new equips at the power of a dark sword and allow them to upgrade, but we haven't seen this yet.  Currently even those are about darksword tier.

[Spino43]

I don't see a problem with power creeping really.

Early items serve their purpose well early game.

A tam o shanter is excellent until you acquire the celestial crown.

You aren't gonna fight a champion of the moon with a lowly spear right?

[Well-met]

41 minutes ago, Dextops said:

i think the opposite, i feel like old items are better than the new items being added which causes a ton of problems

This.

darksword still reigns supreme

[Scrimbles]

Pretty much every character who has been refreshed has been objectively buffed, and very very rarely do characters see any nerfs or more impactful downsides, Wicker and Maxwell being big examples of this.

It's gotten to the point where people think that Wortox is underwhelming.

You know, the character that was considered overtuned when he first launched? Who was too strong? Now he's all of a sudden underwhelming, because of character refresh (or new character in Wanda's case) power creep.

1 hour ago, Spino43 said:

I don't see a problem with power creeping really.

Early items serve their purpose well early game.

A tam o shanter is excellent until you acquire the celestial crown.

You aren't gonna fight a champion of the moon with a lowly spear right?

An issue with power creep is that it can make the base game easier, which isn't what everyone wants.

A lot of characters are objectively more strong than pre-refresh, with no counteractive downside added.

[Guille6785]

31 minutes ago, Scrimbles said:

It's gotten to the point where people think that Wortox is underwhelming.

You know, the character that was considered overtuned when he first launched? Who was too strong? Now he's all of a sudden underwhelming, because of character refresh (or new character in Wanda's case) power creep.

or maybe he always sucked but it's just that once a narrative becomes fact in the community it takes years for it to go away

[HowlVoid]

The only power creep I see is a creative one. Some characters got more love than others when reworked and it really shows.

A lot of characters got tons of items, passives, new synergies, abilities, new combat abilities when they weren't a combat character (which I don't have a problem with), etc.

Some got a crusty bear that works in 50% of the late game content. Some got an item removed from their kit and never replaced. Some had a nerf by having their ability split three ways with major downsides while other characters had theirs completely removed. Some got useless items for laughs and giggles. 

I blatant annoyance that will probably never stop bothering me. 

[Antynomity]

Character wise, yes.

Item wise? The opposite.

[bloopah]

5 hours ago, Guille6785 said:

or maybe he always sucked but it's just that once a narrative becomes fact in the community it takes years for it to go away

Not really that he sucks, in my opinion he's a good character. I see it as him getting a bad rep because people can't play as him due to being unable to handle his mechanics after getting softer with the playstyle of other characters.

[_zwb]

4 hours ago, bloopah said:

Not really that he sucks, in my opinion he's a good character. I see it as him getting a bad rep because people can't play as him due to being unable to handle his mechanics after getting softer with the playstyle of other characters.

Playing Wortox is either eating the entire ice box or eating souls only and insane 24/7. That's not matter of soft style or not, it's the stress having to deal with shadow creatures 24/7 and focus playing all the time.

[bloopah]

3 minutes ago, _zwb said:

Playing Wortox is either eating the entire ice box or eating souls only and insane 24/7. That's not matter of soft style or not, it's the stress having to deal with shadow creatures 24/7 and focus playing all the time.

No? You've probably only seen that "There Are 2 Types of Wortox Players." video and based your opinion on that.

Having half food efficiency means having to eat two Meaty Stews instead of one, not eating everyone out of house and home.

[gamehun20]

12 minutes ago, _zwb said:

Playing Wortox is either eating the entire ice box or eating souls only and insane 24/7. That's not matter of soft style or not, it's the stress having to deal with shadow creatures 24/7 and focus playing all the time.

Idk it was pretty easy for me to stay at max sanity with wortox while eating souls

[Cheggf]

Items being introduced is not power creep unless they're just as easy to get as other items and make those ones irrelevant (haven't played since Wilson rework so idk if new items fit that). The character reworks are also not power creep, Maxwell is just unusually overpowered.

[finn from human]

12 hours ago, Scrimbles said:

It's gotten to the point where people think that Wortox is underwhelming.

You know, the character that was considered overtuned when he first launched? Who was too strong? Now he's all of a sudden underwhelming, because of character refresh (or new character in Wanda's case) power creep.

Is this sudden? Wortox was released 4 years ago and the game's landscape was entirely different back then. Wortox is seen as very underwhelming in modern times because sure, it was really really interesting and powerful to kite Deerclops slightly more efficiently in 2019, or to teleport across small gaps before boats or docks existed, but it's been 4 years and there's way more content in the game now than there was in pre-RoT days. Now that there's actually things to DO other than farm wood and fight the same handful of bosses, it becomes clear that Wortox's abilities just are not nearly as impactful as they were in the olden days.

[Cheggf]

6 hours ago, bloopah said:

Not really that he sucks, in my opinion he's a good character. I see it as him getting a bad rep because people can't play as him due to being unable to handle his mechanics after getting softer with the playstyle of other characters.

Objectively speaking from the perspective of "I need no help surviving and only care about increasing the speed at which I accomplish things" he sucks. It's why they gave him the better teleport, it doesn't take long to learn how to efficiently heal and avoid damage, so his downsides were very relevant and upsides not so relevant.

He's fun and great for newer players, but if you want to be a sweaty try hard he sucks.

5 minutes ago, sylvia wander o said:

Wortox was released 4 years ago and the game's landscape was entirely different back then.

Wortox was added after reworks like Wendy's. He has always been the exact same, it's just a lot of people base their opinions on other people's opinions. I don't know what you mean with there being a lot more to do, they basically just changed farming, added sailing which most people hate and don't engage with, and added more of existing content like extra bosses.

[finn from human]

16 minutes ago, Cheggf said:

Wortox was added after reworks like Wendy's.

Wortox was added when the only existing rework was Winona's, almost a full year before Wendy's.

17 minutes ago, Cheggf said:

I don't know what you mean with there being a lot more to do, they basically just changed farming, added sailing which most people hate and don't engage with, and added more of existing content like extra bosses.

Saying most people hate sailing is a very myopic way of looking at things and I don't think it's actually true outside of select hardcore communities like this. That being said there's the entire questline to get to the celestial champion, including the archives, there's the lunar grotto, there's the lunar island with its many plants and tools, Pearl and ocean fishing, the entirety of the waterlogged biome, reap what you sow, the Moon Quay with all of its unique resources, docks, DOCKS, there's rifts now, and I'm doing a lot of these things a disservice by lumping them together because honestly I could mention stuff like the new trees and moon glass axes and lightbugs and mushgnomes and all sorts of other things on their own. There's a LOT in this game that there wasn't back in the day and, as someone who played constantly through intense burnout back in 2016-2018 as a lonely teen (which I now don't feel at ALL playing with stuff from the past few years), it's all SO substantial and so impactful and changes things SO much and it absolutely recontextualizes older stuff like Wortox that was very clearly designed for a much more boring videogame.

[Scrimbles]

1 hour ago, sylvia wander o said:

Is this sudden? Wortox was released 4 years ago and the game's landscape was entirely different back then. Wortox is seen as very underwhelming in modern times because sure, it was really really interesting and powerful to kite Deerclops slightly more efficiently in 2019, or to teleport across small gaps before boats or docks existed, but it's been 4 years and there's way more content in the game now than there was in pre-RoT days. Now that there's actually things to DO other than farm wood and fight the same handful of bosses, it becomes clear that Wortox's abilities just are not nearly as impactful as they were in the olden days.

...Yeah, power creep.

[Cheggf]

1 hour ago, sylvia wander o said:

Wortox was added when the only existing rework was Winona's, almost a full year before Wendy's.

My bad. What I meant to say was that everyone was calling Wortox overpowered well after reworks like Wendy's. It was only very recently that everyone stopped calling him overpowered.

1 hour ago, sylvia wander o said:

Saying most people hate sailing is a very myopic way of looking at things and I don't think it's actually true outside of select hardcore communities like this.

I almost exclusively play on pubs and I would literally say that I notice sailing happening on something around 1% of servers I go on. Even people going into the ruins is dozens of times more common than people sailing. I almost never notice people planning for sailing, almost never see anyone make Think Tanks, almost never see any boats, almost never see any resources from the sea, almost never see any missing resources from the ocean, and very frequently can account for where everyone is.

People clearly sail, and I'm sure I've missed some people sailing, but most people don't. Then on both the SCUD and these forums (Haven't checked Reddit in a long time but they used to hate sailing there, too) everyone is always talking about how sailing sucks, or needs a rework, or whatever else. Seems very few people actually like engaging with that content.

P.S. Myopic is what deerclops is, not me.

1 hour ago, sylvia wander o said:

That being said there's the entire questline to get to the celestial champion

Walking around doing things in order to be able to fight a boss. More of the content that was already in the game at Wortox's arrival.

1 hour ago, sylvia wander o said:

including the archives, there's the lunar grotto, the entirety of the waterlogged biome,

Biomes have always been in the game.

1 hour ago, sylvia wander o said:

there's the lunar island with its many plants and tools, Pearl and ocean fishing, reap what you sow, the Moon Quay with all of its unique resources

I already said sailing & RWYS.

1 hour ago, sylvia wander o said:

docks

Customizing the world has always been a feature.

1 hour ago, sylvia wander o said:

and I'm doing a lot of these things a disservice by lumping them together because honestly I could mention stuff like the new trees and moon glass axes and lightbugs and mushgnomes and all sorts of other things on their own

"Axe but different" and "Light source but different". You seem to think that I'm saying the game hasn't received any updates since Wortox arrived. I'm saying that the game has not received much content that varies so drastically that it would change how well a character performs. All of what you've said are just additions to already existing systems, or the sailing system that I already said was added. Wortox isn't suddenly weak because people have a blue axe instead of a silver axe. Wortox isn't suddenly weak because people are walking around in an orange area without clockworks instead of an orange area with clockworks. Wortox isn't suddenly weak because you're collecting flowers to be able to fight a boss instead of collecting flowers to make a bee farm. These are not huge changes to the gameplay formula.

Wortox was always weak. Anyone who's changed their mind on him going from overpowered to weak has simply changed their mind. If the game really has received such drastic huge game changing updates (even though you could easily miss out on 100% of the content if you had been gone for a long time and booted the game back up since it's all just additions to existing systems that you have to go out of your way to find), then how come it's just Wortox that is suddenly so different? Wouldn't everyone have had a huge jump like Wortox had, going from "overpowered" to "weak"?

[Gashzer]

Wortox is very strong tho. Getting healing items/food is like 75% of the prep for bosses. 20% is getting armour and 5% is getting a single hambat .

So Wortox having very easily accessed healing is very strong. No crockpots, no gathering ingredients. Top hat for sanity and you are sorted.

How are people calling him weak?? He is more useful than wanda if playing solo atleast for the first year of a new world. And wortox is far far far far better than wanda in a team of players.

 

[Theukon-dos]

I think it's a bit of a weird spot. Because on one hand the Character Refreshes have absolutely been hit by power creep. Wortox has been talked about a lot and wether or not he was always weak. But keep in mind, his main gimmick is being able to turn the weakest of mobs into a respectable amount of healing, and being able to warp around at the speed of sound. If you went back to 2016 and told someone the next DST character would be able to turn butterflies into 80+ HP each spread across his whole team and has a built-in Lazy Explorer, but STILL required buffs later down the road, they'd look at you like you've grown a second head. 

 

Meanwhile, it feels like Klei's been trying too hard to avoid power creep everywhere else. 3 years of ocean updates, and very, very little that's actually worth bothering with. Even to this day. At best, we got side-grades with massive caveats attached (Salt Box, Above-average trees, cookie cutter caps I guess). 

 

It's honestly facinating how that ended up being the case.