New content does far more damage to non-combat characters than to combat characters.

[Cassielu]

This isn't 2013 now, addition of ANR and ROT content has long changed the overall atmosphere of the game. As survival becomes easier and bosses and other creature battles become more frequent, it's natural for players to care more about that part and see it as a glorious pursuit. Combat became a much bigger part of the game than it was back then, which makes combat perk (particularly attack multiplier) very important. 

Especially in the Post-Rift world, the only new thing players have to do is fight, and combat characters like Wolfgang and Wanda are already far more comfortable in the Post-Rift world than others.

The other characters? They're the ones who are struggling. Wormwood has no added benefit from planting, but needs fight with Brightshade to defend what he once had easy access to, and also there banana bush has taken away a large part of the meaning of the farm. Woodie is doing the same thing in the post-rift world as before, but log and Living wood are not as useful as they used to be. 

Their perk have been diluted in updates on long period of time, and the only perk that holds their value is combat ability. And the simpler things tend to be the more effective, especially the damage multiplier is the most powerful ability because it's useful for everything. I can't even remember the last time we got a challenge that had nothing to do with combat and non-combat character can done better.

So why is Wolfgang the only character who gets to rebalance the Post-Rift world? It's not even a matter of fighting planar creatures, he can now kill ordinary lunar and shadow creatures at an even crazier rate than ever before. Rob important gaming experience from other characters.

Don't bother me with wormwood's brightshade gain, anyone of normal intelligence can see which one has more potential, and which one is a useless ability to be wasted.

 

Edit:

my appeal point is:

Please make survival important than combat again, or nerf those OP combat characters until they doesn't rob main fun in this game from other character.

 

[landromat]

wormwood is very strong with lunar gear. Roots and shadow tentacles like vines are insanely good. Can be even more useful than wolfgang thanks to his control ability

[Cassielu]

15 minutes ago, landromat said:

wormwood is very strong with lunar gear. Roots and shadow tentacles like vines are insanely good. Can be even more useful than wolfgang thanks to his control ability

Yeah, yeah, see how many people use Thulecite club instead of the Night Sword.

[landromat]

2 minutes ago, Cassielu said:

Yeah, yeah, see how many people use Thulecite club instead of the Night Sword.

what's your point? Are you trying to compare lunar/non-lunar gear same way as dark sword and thulecide club? Seriously?

[Antynomity]

I have to agree.
I hope we can stop getting strictly combat stuff for the game already, add new actual threats to survival that isn't just wrecking the base without a way to avoid it other than 'run away' and we're good, they tried that with shadow rifts' acid rains and then softly removed them from the game instead of making it good.

[Capybara007]

7 minutes ago, Antynomity said:

they tried that with shadow rifts' acid rains and then softly removed them from the game instead of making it good.

that has changed now

what made acid rain so bad is that they would basically not allow you to experience the new shadow blights content since to attack them you need a weapon

now you deploy umbralla to avoid arain which makes it even more exciting of a fight since you must stay in one place instead of moving everywhere

as for boulders, pillars, that was something suggested, and they did it, for me personally i wouldve loved if different types of pillars (wood pillar, stone pillar, thulecite pillar) would be more efficient and covered a bigger range, but this is fine

[skile]

ngl, I want some more Pearl-like content. Not necessarily another npc, just content that isn't just "smack big bad monster in the head". Fighting is cool and all, but other aspects of the game deserve attention too. 

[Ardyn]

Wolfgang has achieved significant enhancements in DST. In fact, every update to a boss is an enhancement to him, just like adding cooking is an enhancement to Wally. Boss gradually occupies an extremely important position in DST, which makes Wolfgang's strength in DST far exceed his strength in DS. Although the planar mechanism causes Wolfgang to lose twice the damage, it still retains a significant gain in combat, and combat plays a major role in updates involving the planar mechanism. This means that although Wolfgang reduces damage, it can more frequently utilize its advantages in terms of damage. Therefore, this year's update involving the planar mechanism is likely to strengthen rather than weaken Wolfgang.

[Shosuko]

5 minutes ago, Ardyn said:

In fact, every update to a boss is an enhancement to him

because only Wolfgang can fight right? lol

[Ardyn]

Just now, Shosuko said:

because only Wolfgang can fight right? lol

His gain in combat is greater than that of other characters, so the more scenes he needs to fight, the more obvious his advantage over other characters becomes.

[Popian]

Maybe it would help to see the numbers you get when using specific combinations of equipment/skills/buffs.

[Shosuko]

8 hours ago, Ardyn said:

His gain in combat is greater than that of other characters, so the more scenes he needs to fight, the more obvious his advantage over other characters becomes.

Likewise every bit of time not spent in combat or carrying other things is that much further behind he falls...  but I do love picking cherries.

[Cassielu]

On 7/7/2023 at 8:40 PM, landromat said:

what's your point? Are you trying to compare lunar/non-lunar gear same way as dark sword and thulecide club? Seriously?

Of course im seriously. Just as most people prefer use dark swords instead of thulecide club, increased damage will always be the versatile and therefore most powerful combat ability, while generating tentacles for extra damage has proven to be less useful. Moreover, Wormwood with lunar gear is still not as powerful as Wolfgang in any case.

 

Deadly Brightshade, for example, is our most common adversary in the post-Rift world, and the creature that poses the greatest threat to Wormwood's work.

When Wormwood use brightshade sword and helmet, his expected damage per attack is 64+60*0.2=76 damage. for this, he need fully 8 insights, where most of the abilities are useless to Wormwood.

Mighty Wolfgang, meanwhile, only needs a dark sword to deal 79 damage with 3 insight for shadow guard skill. Or in the same equipment conditions he deal 83 damage without any skill.

Since brightshade doesn't move, we don't even need to worry about root missing issue. wormwood is still far behind wolfgang.

  

Then there's the birghtshade armor skill... Bramble Armor is definitely stronger if it has same 10 planar defense.

  

Wormwood has nothing in the post-Rift world, Banana and Birghtshade together kill the farm, Planar damage kill Bramble Armor, new equipment doesn't require live log to craft, and even acid rain does double damage to him. And Wolfgang? He simply went from being a God to being a God-like Superman, even more needed than ever because of the increased frequency and difficulty of combat. We can't even tell if Rift update is doing him any harm. (Wanda is the same) 

Those Characters without direct combat perk like Wormwood are the characters that realy need large buff up to fit into a post-Rift world, not Wolfgang and Wanda, who is already better suited to a post-Rift world than anyone else.

[BB Marioni]

1- are there even any non combat characters anymore? Wormwood and Woodie are both going to have good fighting capabilities once the beta gets released. Besides, there is more than just smacking enemies with melee weapons as forms of fighting/ defending yourself in this game, you just have to be creative. I've seen frogs decimate brightshades.

2- boulders and acid rain are non combat elements, and are actually survival elements which is the thing you said you are looking for.

3 - I dont see any issue with havng a specialty gear? So what if he's better with a brightshade gear? Maxwell is better with shadow gears, so is wanda. I like it more this way, it gives each character a theme and different way to build them. Using footballl helmet and hambat for every character against everything is a worse game design.

[landromat]

19 minutes ago, Cassielu said:

Of course im seriously. Just as most people prefer use dark swords instead of thulecide club, increased damage will always be the versatile and therefore most powerful combat ability, while generating tentacles for extra damage has proven to be less useful. Moreover, Wormwood with lunar gear is still not as powerful as Wolfgang in any case.

 

Deadly Brightshade, for example, is our most common adversary in the post-Rift world, and the creature that poses the greatest threat to Wormwood's work.

When Wormwood use brightshade sword and helmet, his expected damage per attack is 64+60*0.2=76 damage. for this, he need fully 8 insights, where most of the abilities are useless to Wormwood.

Mighty Wolfgang, meanwhile, only needs a dark sword to deal 79 damage with 3 insight for shadow guard skill. Or in the same equipment conditions he deal 83 damage without any skill.

Since brightshade doesn't move, we don't even need to worry about root missing issue. wormwood is still far behind wolfgang.

  

Then there's the birghtshade armor skill... Bramble Armor is definitely stronger if it has same 10 planar defense.

  

Wormwood has nothing in the post-Rift world, Banana and Birghtshade together kill the farm, Planar damage kill Bramble Armor, new equipment doesn't require live log to craft, and even acid rain does double damage to him. And Wolfgang? He simply went from being a God to being a God-like Superman, even more needed than ever because of the increased frequency and difficulty of combat. We can't even tell if Rift update is doing him any harm. (Wanda is the same) 

Those Characters without direct combat perk like Wormwood are the characters that realy need large buff up to fit into a post-Rift world, not Wolfgang and Wanda, who is already better suited to a post-Rift world than anyone else.

So you want wormwood to deal same damage as wolfgang or what. That's literally all he's good at. His tree allows him to deal same damage to planar creatures IF he spent everything on damage branches and IF he only hits lunar OR dark creatures. not both.

 

I understand wormwood skill tree sucks bu he definitely should not be able to deal damage comparable to wolfgang. Noone should

[Cassielu]

1 hour ago, BB Marioni said:

1- are there even any non combat characters anymore? Wormwood and Woodie are both going to have good fighting capabilities once the beta gets released. Besides, there is more than just smacking enemies with melee weapons as forms of fighting/ defending yourself in this game, you just have to be creative. I've seen frogs decimate brightshades.

It's more like the "direct combat perk", things like the damage multiplier and followers, which are easily associated and taken into account when Klei gives new mobs different combat styles, or introduces new combat mechanics.

And other combat advantage like "Wormwood provides live log and crafts equipment he need to gain combat advantage" or "Maxwell prevents a mob from achieving its goal by preventing it from reaching a given location", Which is more complex, interesting and creative. But it's also easier to ignore and hard to balance. I call them, for convenience, "indirect combat perk". They are often created by combining "non-combat perk" with other content.

For the post-Rift world now, "direct combat perk" (mainly damage multiplier) have been somewhat damaged by the emergence of planar resist, "indirect combat perk" have been almost destroyed by equipment upgrades, and "non-combat perk" itself are completely useless to new content because Rift currently only brings pure WASD move combat.

As things stand, Klei recognize the damage they've done to the direct combat perk and give Wolfgang a very powerful buff to try to compensate for him. But doesn't compensate for "indirect combat perk" and "non-combat perk", which take more damage by update.

1 hour ago, BB Marioni said:

2- boulders and acid rain are non combat elements, and are actually survival elements which is the thing you said you are looking for.

The solution is to kill the ancient guardian and ink blight.

1 hour ago, BB Marioni said:

3 - I dont see any issue with havng a specialty gear? So what if he's better with a brightshade gear? Maxwell is better with shadow gears, so is wanda. I like it more this way, it gives each character a theme and different way to build them. Using footballl helmet and hambat for every character against everything is a worse game design.

I like that too, but what's the point of choosing an gear if another character can do it better with any gear than you can?

[Cassielu]

2 hours ago, landromat said:

So you want wormwood to deal same damage as wolfgang or what. That's literally all he's good at. His tree allows him to deal same damage to planar creatures IF he spent everything on damage branches and IF he only hits lunar OR dark creatures. not both.

 

I understand wormwood skill tree sucks bu he definitely should not be able to deal damage comparable to wolfgang. Noone should

No, I don't think so. I'm just saying that wormwood can't "be even more useful than wolfgang thanks to his control ability" and worth almost nothing in the post-Rift world and the current skilltree. He's much more hurt by the new contant but get less compensation.

[cropo]

During character refreshses, they seemed to focus more on the characters who really needed them at the start. The game change massively since then, and they rounded out the future characters refreshes with even more power.

 

So to put a positive spin on things, focusing on the skill trees of characters who DON'T need them at the moment, waiting for the next big update, and then working on the characters who actually need them after this has all stewed might be the right decision.

[BB Marioni]

1 hour ago, Cassielu said:

The solution is to kill the ancient guardian and ink blight.

I like that too, but what's the point of choosing an gear if another character can do it better with any gear than you can?

well duuhhh, what kind of survival challenge would you want, one that has no solution? That's not a challenge anymore. 

"better" is very subjective to your perspective. I would never consider wolfgang and wanda better just because they are the best in face to face combat. They are better in that specific area of expertise, sure. But other characters are also better in other forms both in terms of combat and utility. If you want a character that is specifically good at face to face combat, then pick either one of them. Forcing all characters to be good at melee fights beats the purpose of having different specialties. In fact, I prefer using other characcters than those two when fighting because i prefer kiling bosses from a safe distance.
 

[Cassielu]

33 minutes ago, BB Marioni said:

well duuhhh, what kind of survival challenge would you want, one that has no solution? That's not a challenge anymore. 

Some things that solution by a way that doesn't kill the mobs but also not deliberate. like pangolden and mant.

33 minutes ago, BB Marioni said:

"better" is very subjective to your perspective. I would never consider wolfgang and wanda better just because they are the best in face to face combat. They are better in that specific area of expertise, sure. But other characters are also better in other forms both in terms of combat and utility. If you want a character that is specifically good at face to face combat, then pick either one of them. Forcing all characters to be good at melee fights beats the purpose of having different specialties. In fact, I prefer using other characcters than those two when fighting because i prefer kiling bosses from a safe distance.

I thought we were limiting our discussion to the combat.

The whole "Wanda and Wolfgang are good at combat and the other characters are good at other" things isn't work (at least in post-rift world). I talked about it at the beginning.

[astroapyr]

Really, it's only natural that combat is the most popular aspect of the game, thus receives most of tweaks, but others have a lot of potential to be fun too and are underdeveloped.

Sailing is an example, we have a lot of structures to build a boat you can survive of and explore but not many reasons to build such a complex boat, except for sunken chests hunt, clearing the ocean part of the map and probably fishing.

Fighting shouldn't be mandatory for all rewards or content, but should maybe be focused around sailing, farming, exploring, building, puzzles, etc. The Celestial Champion quest is a good example because fighting CC is just a part of it.

[chincer]

There is a reason Wanda at least to me is so insane, not only she get her combat capacities which keep her relevant , but her utility is never bad, the teleporting clocks alone make every passing winter with tusk a world of possible anchor points for her to jump to.

 

Should every character be good at combat? Not at all, but they all should have ways to solve the problems if they can't fight, like Winona's catapults and the new cheese of woodie with tree guards, or wurt just hiring a merm army, and eventually I expect Walter to have his options too as a range combat character.

On top of that each character that can't fight should have late game niches just like Wanda teleports, and wormwood ability to plant nearly everything or wickerbottom making eternal full moons and ignoring rains with books, the problem is that new content seems to value the power of defeating rough bosses more than solving environment hazzards

[GenomeSquirrel]

From my perspective, the steeper the climb to reach combat, the less relevant it becomes to me, I only play for a few hours a day, and it’s unlikely the world would last 24 hours.

Probably why I didn’t even look at what Wolfgang got this time.