Walter skill ideas

[Riddla]

Wanted to think of potential skills for Walter for fun.

The skills are in no particular order, they're raw concepts that can serve as inspiration for his skillset.
Feedback, suggestions, your own ideas - post them below, would love to hear!

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"Master" Storyteller
When Walter is telling a night-time story, survivors can choose to interact with Walter by right-clicking him. This causes survivors to fall asleep and gain benefits of a Tent, which they can cancel manually at any time.

Epipen
Walter can craft an Epipen, which suppresses his allergic reaction to Bee stings. For 1 day, all of the bonus damage taken by Bees is divided by 2.5, and rather than taking the bonus damage instantly, it slowly damages Walter over-time at a rate of 1 HP every 4 secs.

Snapshot
I: After hitting an enemy with a melee attack, his next round from a Slingshot is instantly fired.
The skill has an internal cooldown of 3 seconds before it can be activated again.
II: The instant shot gains a 100% Damage Bonus.
III: The instant shot also affects target enemy with Vulnerability, forcing it to take 15% more damage from all sources for 3 seconds.

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Heroic Retreat
When Walter faces away from a mob that is currently aggressive to him, his Movement Speed is increased by 20%.

Treehouse
Walter can construct a Treehouse by interacting with a tree in its final stage while holding hammer, which consumes a large amount of Boards. Up to 6 survivors can climb up the treehouse, which allows them to:

- See farther ahead, spotting living creatures and other Survivors in an enormous radius on the map around the tree.
- Take a nap, restoring stats at half of a Tent efficiency.
- Use Ranged projectiles and throw items from a far distance.
- Gain modest insulation for both cold and heat.

Aggressive mobs cannot reach survivors up on the treehouse, however they can attack the tree itself, and eventually break it down entirely after 20 attacks. Bosses destroy it in 2 attacks.

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Spyglass
Walter can craft a Spyglass, which allows him to "scan" any area on the map within a few seconds. Scanning selected location will reveal a large area around it on the map, consuming durability of the Spyglass depending on the distance from Walter.

Panic
When under 50% HP, Walter gains a minor attack speed boost to Melee.
In addition to that, if mobs are closer than 3 pitchfork tiles within Walter, his slingshot reload time gets also reduced by half.

Nasty Surprise
If Walter has a different type of ammunition in his inventory, he fires it in addition to his equipped slingshot ammunition every 3rd shot.
Only one type of ammunition leftmost to the inventory bar gets affected.
 

Hide n' Seek
I: While under Bush Hat, Walter can now slowly move around.
II: While under Bush Hat, Walter is able to fire his slingshot without jumping out. Affected targets run around and attempt to find the source of damage, but the closer they get to Walter, the higher the chance they'll spot him.
The chance becomes doubled if Walter is not close to natural obstacles while under Bush Hat.


Pellet Pouch
Walter can craft his own personal Slingshot ammunition pouch, which can hold up to 16 stacks of rounds.
(credit to Jakepeng99 for the idea!)

 

--------------------------------------------------------------   Ammunition Branch    --------------------------------------------------------------

NOTE: All ammunition skills below labelled as I that enhance next fired projectiles do not stack with each other. The bonuses change according to your used ammunition once you use up the aforementioned amount of projectiles the skills state.
 

Poop Pellets
I: Hitting a target with Poop Pellet causes all effects of the next 3 fired non-poop projectiles to become 50% stronger.
II: Walter's Poop Pellets can now Disorient affected targets, forcing them to run around aimlessly for a few seconds or until attacked, which nullifies their aggro if they do not spot any nearby survivors after the effect expires. (Bosses are immune)

Gold Rounds
I: Gold Round projectiles now bounce against your main target and seek out the closest mob to it, damaging it for full amount.
II: Gold Round projectiles gain an additional bounce for each 2nd Gold Round shot.
(credit to Jakepeng99 for this one as well!)

 

Marble Rounds
I: Hitting a target with a Marble Round causes the next 3 non-marble Slingshot projectiles to explode into a shrapnel when hitting the target, dealing 17 extra damage in a small AoE and spreading out non-skill effects of the used ammunition in that radius.
II: Marble rounds can Stagger an enemy for 1 second, which prevents their attack if timed correctly. Targets receive an internal cooldown of 4 seconds before being affected by this again.
 

Freeze Rounds
I: Hitting a target with a Freeze Round causes next 3 Walter's melee attacks to deal x1.5 damage.
II: The melee attack damage bonus is increased to x4 if you strike the target while it's entirely frozen.

 

Slow-Down Rounds
I: Hitting a target with a Slow-Down Round causes the next non-slowdown Slingshot projectile to completely stop the target in place for 3 seconds.
However, they can still attack, and they receive an internal cooldown for 6 seconds before being affected by this again.
II: Slow-Down Rounds also temporarily cripple target's attack animation speed by 33% until it finishes the next attack.

 

Cursed Rounds
I: Hitting a target with a Cursed Round causes the next non-cursed Slingshot projectile to force one active Shadow Tentacle to explode into 3 Cursed Rounds, which have a 25% chance to summon Shadow Tentacles if they hit targets.
II: If active Shadow Tentacles are unable to attack anything nearby, they burrow and erupt as spikes underneath Walter's target enemy, instantly dealing (34 x 3) damage while despawning afterwards.

--------------------------------------------------------------   Woby Branch    --------------------------------------------------------------

Best Friends Forever
I: Walter can now play with Woby by throwing a stick to fetch, which grants Walter a +5 Sanity boost per each successful catch.
Walter can also order Woby to grab an item from afar and bring it to him.

II: Interacting with Suspicious Dirt Pile notifies Woby and lets her assist with the hunt, sniffing out and leading Walter to nearest Dirt Pile, while reducing the amount required of uncovering tracks down to 2 piles only total.

III: Every 2-4 minutes, Woby will sniff out something and start digging the ground. After a few seconds, she dig outs a random item from Catcoon's gift table (pictured below), or a random trinket.

Bigger Heart, Bigger Love
I: Big Woby's hunger decays two times slower.
II: Big Woby tries her best to throw Walter into safer distance away from nearby mobs when hurt.
III: Walter can right click on himself to quickly whistle with his fingers, alerting Woby to regain focus, run up to Walter, and dash away with him from danger, while tossing Walter up to make him mount instantly.

Taxi Service
Woby now lets additional Survivors and Walter's followers to hop on her and join the ride with Walter, up to extra 3 passengers total.

Pack it Up
Walter can attach a body slot container, such as Backpack or Piggyback, onto Big Woby. When Big Woby detransforms, she drops the container as well.

 

 

--------------------------------------------------------------   Scout Branch    --------------------------------------------------------------

 

Proficient Forager
I: Walter receives half of the stat penalties from raw and cooked food.
II: Walter picks all resources such as Twigs, Grass, Berries at x1.5 speed
III: In addition to above perk, Walter might occasionally find 1 extra resource when foraging at a 50% chance.

Animal Kinship
I: Neutral animals, such as Koalaphants and Volt Goats, will no longer run away from Walter, and can be fed with any non-meat food to make them temporarily follow him, duration depending on hunger restored from food.

II: Hounds aggro range is significantly lowered, and from afar they become wary of Walter. If he comes too close, they will become aggressive and attack him.
Otherwise, when they're far enough, Walter can drop any meat item for a Hound to eat, making nearby horde of hounds Neutral towards Walter for 2 days.
In addition, Walter can craft a Hound Whistle, which allows Neutral hounds to also become temporarily Tamed for a day, allowing Walter to command them to attack his enemies.

III: When Walter is riding a Beefalo, he gains certain abilities, which also grants Beefalo a minor Domestication boost when performing:
- (Rider Tendency) Beefalo can Jump up to 2 pitchfork tiles over Ocean gap and Void
- (Rider Tendency) Beefalo can Jump over a Pond
- (Ornery Tendency) Beefalo can run over creatures, dealing 34 damage to them in the process. This ability can be only performed when Beefalo has been running in one direction for at least 3 seconds.
- (Pudgy Tendency) Walter can craft a Sack of Hay, which costs 6 Grass and 1 Rope, and feed it to a Beefalo, which restores 100 Hunger and 100% Obedience.

True Scout
I: Mobs have 50% less vision range for Walter.
II: Walter can target and fire his Slingshot at the ground, distracting nearby mobs by making them walk to the impact zone. This does not work if entities have already spotted Walter.
III: When standing close to a natural obstacle, such as Boulder, Tree, Berry Bush, etc., Walter becomes Hidden, either losing all aggro within 2 seconds, or becoming invisible to all creatures until Walter attacks.

 

 

(P. S. - I've made a thread for Warly as well if you're curious to read it: https://forums.kleientertainment.com/forums/topic/149835-warly-skill-ideas/)

 

[Gashzer]

Some of these ideas are pretty creative! Making Walter a "stealth archer" is kind of funny and would mix up gameplay if done right 

Gonna also link my ideas, they are abit less creative tho - https://forums.kleientertainment.com/forums/topic/149175-good-job-klei-on-the-skill-trees-walter-skill-tree/

[ShadowDuelist]

These are nice ideas.
I think the slingshot tree should have AOE at some point or given some limited uses or circumstances (although you added something kind of like that with gold rounds and cursed rounds)

The poop pellets making enemies fight each other, although it sounds really cool, IMO would probably be way too big and gamechanger, given how enemies with herd mentally aggro works (they tend to make a chain reaction of civil war, like webber and his spiders). it would be nuking some new creatures that we normally don’t kill with civil wars, at a very low cost (beefalos, monkeys, pirates, robots, frogs etc).
Not that we don’t have means to nuke those cheaply already (EG: Maxwell, or Abigail with the lower HP ones) but I’m just pointing it out.

[Cloakingsumo198]

I've been saying that giving Walter some form of "QuickDraw" would improve his combat ability drastically especially for mobs that kite since he would still be able to put down damage.

Since he also has the slowdown rounds I've felt like should have more debuff options or crowd control.

[Jakepeng99]

 Normally the skill tree idea posts have a few good ideas and some bad ones that weigh it out, but this one is really good! I really like what has been done to the slingshot ammo which makes each of them have niches, rather than being direct upgrades if you can afford it. All of these combat changes make him a high skill, active combat character which i really like, the current combat characters in the game just make combat easier and need less skill, this makes Walter pretty powerful in combat, but with skill. I really love the combat changes and i kind of want Klei to straight up copy them all for Walter's tree, this applies to all the slingshot skills, including the one that you shoot the ground, and the whole option for stealth as Walter. The non combat changes are nice too, the one that makes him have a chance to get an extra item when foraging is nice. In terms of weaknesses, i think the Animal Kindship perks don't work that well, and the tree house feels a little out of place. For the animal kindship, it could be replaced with beefalo tied perks maybe.

Also, i think snapshot should have some sort of big cooldown because i think it pushes Walter too far into intense micro managment of constabtly switching between the two weapons. Some of the ammo skills could have some reduction in micromanagment too.

My improvment

2 hours ago, ShadowDuelist said:

These are nice ideas.
I think the slingshot tree should have AOE at some point or given some limited uses or circumstances (although you added something kind of like that with gold rounds and cursed rounds)

The poop pellets making enemies fight each other, although it sounds really cool, IMO would probably be way too big and gamechanger, given how enemies with herd mentally aggro works (they tend to make a chain reaction of civil war, like webber and his spiders). it would be nuking some new creatures that we normally don’t kill with civil wars, at a very low cost (beefalos, monkeys, pirates, robots, frogs etc).
Not that we don’t have means to nuke those cheaply already (EG: Maxwell, or Abigail with the lower HP ones) but I’m just pointing it out.

I agree with the poop pellets, they are pretty op even if we do not take tat in account. I thini as a replacment they could have an aoe de aggro.

Also a final suggestion though this should be part of his base kit, Walter has his own storage for slingshot rounds.

[mutafa_132231]

Good

[Riddla]

3 hours ago, ShadowDuelist said:

I think the slingshot tree should have AOE at some point or given some limited uses or circumstances (although you added something kind of like that with gold rounds and cursed rounds)

Fair point, I've swapped around Gold Round perks so that it can boost other ammunition to ricochet as well
 

3 hours ago, ShadowDuelist said:

The poop pellets making enemies fight each other, although it sounds really cool, IMO would probably be way too big and gamechanger, given how enemies with herd mentally aggro works (they tend to make a chain reaction of civil war, like webber and his spiders). it would be nuking some new creatures that we normally don’t kill with civil wars, at a very low cost (beefalos, monkeys, pirates, robots, frogs etc).

1 hour ago, Jakepeng99 said:

I agree with the poop pellets, they are pretty op even if we do not take tat in account. I thini as a replacment they could have an aoe de aggro.

I completely agree with this, i forgot about the herd instincts and how easy it is to abuse, oops
Edited them to be more of a deaggro and disorientation tool, so that you can pick a duel with aggressive mobs one by one while another one is incapacitated.
 

1 hour ago, Jakepeng99 said:

I think the Animal Kindship perks don't work that well, and the tree house feels a little out of place. For the animal kindship, it could be replaced with beefalo tied perks maybe.

Beefalo perks sound pretty fun to tinker with, I've attempted to think of some that could assist with taming, while providing extra minor abilities.
Mixed Hound perks into one skill, but as for the neutral creature skill, I think it should be useful enough for relocating them to base or hunting them down without slingshot.

As for Treehouse, I want it to be a way for Walter to share his scouting perks with Survivors, so that they can view things into far distances and act as a way to spot where players are, without having to use stuff like Flare or mods. Basically map info generator, and a cozy place to stop by to rest in with safety.
 

1 hour ago, Jakepeng99 said:

Also, i think snapshot should have some sort of big cooldown because i think it pushes Walter too far into intense micro managment of constabtly switching between the two weapons. Some of the ammo skills could have some reduction in micromanagment too.

Fair point as well, I will add a minor cooldown to Snapshot and buff up some ammunition perks to last for a few rounds rather than only one, because it would be pretty hellish to constantly spam number keys to swap every single time.

Thank you all for the feedback :>

[Jakepeng99]

27 minutes ago, Riddla said:

Fair point, I've swapped around Gold Round perks so that it can boost other ammunition to ricochet as well
 

I think the gold rounds were alot better the way before. They could be used in combos with things like the thulicite rounds which triggers the special effect twice since it bounces. The current one is also pretty op. Also, the gold ammo was useful with the quick sling perk against crowd control. It seems really good against hounds, especially when combined with the marble ammo.

I like the rest of the ammo changes you did, it fixes intense micro and makes them more fun to use. However last thing, i think only one effect should be able to work at a time, right now you can now stack alot effects at once which is alot of micro managment, and possibly overpowered.

Also i think the frozen round should have nerfed damage, and last only 1 hit since it racks up Wolfgang level damage. I like the rest of those changes.

[Riddla]

8 minutes ago, Jakepeng99 said:

I think the gold rounds were alot better the way before. They could be used in combos with things like the thulicite rounds which triggers the special effect twice since it bounces. The current one is also pretty op. Also, the gold ammo was useful with the quick sling perk against crowd control. It seems really good against hounds, especially when combined with the marble ammo.

I like the rest of the ammo changes you did, it fixes intense micro and makes them more fun to use. However last thing, i think only one effect should be able to work at a time, right now you can now stack alot effects at once which is alot of micro managment, and possibly overpowered.

Actually, now that I am thinking about it, Gold Rounds being special in a way that it lets you deal with AoE situations should be fine imo, while letting the other ammo shine in their own ways.
I will revert the Gold Round changes and remove the damage loss from projectile bounce, so that it remains nice for all stages of the game.

Also that is a very good point, I will clarify in OP that the ammo effects do not stack from each separate ammunition. I appreciate it!

[Copyafriend]

Honestly super creative and most importantly fun.

I think my favorite perk that i seriously hope klei considers is the taxi service, its a huge buff but also allows walter a unique niche in the traveling/exploring department that would be a lot of fun in multiplayer

[Jakepeng99]

18 minutes ago, Riddla said:

Actually, now that I am thinking about it, Gold Rounds being special in a way that it lets you deal with AoE situations should be fine imo, while letting the other ammo shine in their own ways.
I will revert the Gold Round changes and remove the damage loss from projectile bounce, so that it remains nice for all stages of the game.

Also that is a very good point, I will clarify in OP that the ammo effects do not stack from each separate ammunition. I appreciate it!

I think gold rounds should be unique and not provide a buff, they look like a good catalist for combos with their unique ability to bounce and trigger effects twice, rather than being used in combos. Dealing 2x damage aswell also seems too much, and the current balance powercreeped other rounds a little too much, so here is my take. The way it could be structured is:

Gold pellets I: Gold Pellets now bounce to 1 additional target.

Gold pellets II: Gold Pellets now bounce to an additional target for every Odd shot(E.g, it will bounce to an extra target every 1st, 3rd, 5th shot ec)

This means it is a little less effective when combined with cursed rounds, but still as good with marble. I think this makes it more balanced, and fit better. I am really invested on the full idea of slingshot combos, i really hope Klei takes notes of this, it is really fun and makes Walter's ranged combat more than just, ranged combat.

[Riddla]

16 minutes ago, Jakepeng99 said:

Gold pellets I: Gold Pellets now bounce to 1 additional target.

Gold pellets II: Gold Pellets now bounce to an additional target for every Odd shot(E.g, it will bounce to an extra target every 1st, 3rd, 5th shot ec)

That actually sounds perfect, thank you very much for the suggestions regarding it!

[Jakepeng99]

On 7/31/2023 at 4:12 PM, Riddla said:

If Walter has a different type of ammunition in his inventory, he fires it in addition to his equipped slingshot ammunition every 3rd shot.
Only one type of ammunition leftmost to the inventory bar gets affected.

Quick suggestion: Since the buff from the rounds was increased, i think this should either change to every 6th shot, or not apply the extra buff.

It might also be cool for snapshot to make you shot 2 rounds at once instead of dealing double damage so it can work with the freeze rounds.

[Mysterious box]

Something I'd definitely want to see for the slingshot is a stack size of 200 and a craft amount of 40 per craft as a skill.

[Gashzer]

2 hours ago, Mysterious box said:

Something I'd definitely want to see for the slingshot is a stack size of 200 and a craft amount of 40 per craft as a skill.

As awesome as this is. 40 marbles rounds for 1 marble piece is just too insane.

I feel 15 to 20 rounds per craft is the max klei would push it.

[Jakepeng99]

2 hours ago, Mysterious box said:

Something I'd definitely want to see for the slingshot is a stack size of 200 and a craft amount of 40 per craft as a skill.

That is really overkill, it is probably fine the way it is, though cursed rounds should make 15 per craft. But, i agree about the stacksize. The built in ammo storage helps, even though 16 stacks is pretty overkill.

[Mysterious box]

Just now, Jakepeng99 said:

That is really overkill, it is probably fine the way it is, though cursed rounds should make 15 per craft. But, i agree about the stacksize. The built in ammo storage helps, even though 16 stacks is pretty overkill.

Is it really overkill? A spear that has the same damage output is 150 hits in one slot I added a additional 50 to round it out better assuming we went for 40 per craft at 5 crafts the current 60 shots per stack is way too small for a weapon.

As for the per craft amount I feel like it's useful to cut down on how much grind the slingshot introduces it's already a slow weapon I don't think the player should be punish with it being inefficient as well.

[Gashzer]

4 minutes ago, Mysterious box said:

Is it really overkill? A spear that has the same damage output is 150 hits in one slot I added a additional 50 to round it out better assuming we went for 40 per craft at 5 crafts the current 60 shots per stack is way too small for a weapon.

As for the per craft amount I feel like it's useful to cut down on how much grind the slingshot introduces it's already a slow weapon I don't think the player should be punish with it being inefficient as well.

Right now its not the slow attack speed that is balancing the slingshot with melee, its the grind for the ammo. If you make ammo super easy to amass the slingshot wont even need any increase to attack speed, you could slowly and safely chip away at every boss without needing armour or healing or even speed boosts. 

If you want a faster firing slingshot, klei has to balance it somehow by making sure ammo is still hard to craft. Or if ammo is made easier to amass then firing speed cant be increased or Walter will become an untouchable god of combat.

So pick. Faster shooting or easy to craft ammo?

Hopefully klei will buff both even if its just a wee bit. But dont hold out hope for them to buff both to the level you want.

[Mysterious box]

1 minute ago, Gashzer said:

Right now its not the slow attack speed that is balancing the slingshot with melee, its the grind for the ammo. If you make ammo super easy to amass the slingshot wont even need any increase to attack speed, you could slowly and safely chip away at every boss without needing armour or healing or even speed boosts. 

If you want a faster firing slingshot, klei has to balance it somehow by making sure ammo is still hard to craft. Or if ammo is made easier to amass then firing speed cant be increased or Walter will become an untouchable god of combat.

So pick. Faster shooting or easy to craft ammo?

Hopefully klei will buff both even if its just a wee bit. But dont hold out hope for them to buff both to the level you want.

Grinding the ammo isn't balancing it because in every scenario there are safer options than the slingshot and the slingshots ammos aside from slowdown and poop pellets are all inferior versions of existing items. 

That aside I don't believe the slingshot needs a speed boost as much as it could use a better targeting system, damage boost, and impactful crowd. Because much like were moose pre patch its possible to fight with it but outside of exploits it's never rewarding to fight with it.

 

58 minutes ago, Gashzer said:

As awesome as this is. 40 marbles rounds for 1 marble piece is just too insane.

I feel 15 to 20 rounds per craft is the max klei would push it.

Honestly I think it's more so people viewing it as a item rather than a weapon think about it that's 40% of a tentacle spike per marble vs the current 10% of a tentacle spike.

[Riddla]

10 hours ago, Jakepeng99 said:

Quick suggestion: Since the buff from the rounds was increased, i think this should either change to every 6th shot, or not apply the extra buff.

It might also be cool for snapshot to make you shot 2 rounds at once instead of dealing double damage so it can work with the freeze rounds.

I thought of giving Snapshot a multishot at first, but I decided to make a separate skill for it and force it to apply after specific amount of shots, so that it's also another tiny micromanagement to keep in mind, which encourages to time and combo specific ammunition for meaty results, although I think if two ammunitions hit at once the interaction will be very awkward, maybe the 2nd shot should instead follow your main shot behind closely, so that the skill from the main shot takes priority over 2nd shot.

Damage Bonus is to make the time spent on swapping from weapon to slingshot more forgiving so that it doesn't feel like a big DPS loss when doing so, there are a lot of rapid moments during boss fights to account for.

Though maybe I am wrong on that, it does sound cool to also give Walter a consistent multishot skill instead of damage for bigger utility and overall control. Perhaps it should spend 1 ammunition to fire 2 primary rounds at once for Snapshot, or would that be too strong?

[WhackE]

On 7/31/2023 at 9:12 AM, Riddla said:

Epipen
Walter can craft an Epipen, which suppresses his allergic reaction to Bee stings. For 1 day, all of the bonus damage taken by Bees is divided by 2.5, and rather than taking the bonus damage instantly, it slowly damages Walter over-time at a rate of 1 HP every 4 secs.

This downside is already pretty irrelevant, except for one scenario fighting a specific boss, he doesn't really need an item like this. The other idea like being able to move while wearing a bush hat are cool.

[Jakepeng99]

12 hours ago, WhackE said:

This downside is already pretty irrelevant, except for one scenario fighting a specific boss, he doesn't really need an item like this. The other idea like being able to move while wearing a bush hat are cool.

It is a cool upside though.