Dos and Donts of Walter Skill tree (Suggestions)

[Jakepeng99]

I made one for Wurt, i was thinking of making one of Walter but did Wurt instead since Walter is probably the next skill tree, but i made one anyway.

 

The donts

Simplifying or negating his sainity downside.

• His downside is actually really well designed even if it needs high skill, it encourages you to use his slingshot and can also award skill in melee combat. It is a fun change on how sainity works for him and makes you play the game alot differently. If you want to tank, use his pinetree hat and some body armour. The fact that it is challenging and unique is what makes Walter fun to play. The only problem with this downside is that the slingshot is underpowered which is what this upside/downside seems to encourage.

 

Giving Woby Perks that just make her more like a Beefalo

• It wont work that well, she should probably have unique special utility perks that you would want from her and not from a beefalo.

 

Making his slingshot TOO strong

• This may seem like common sense, but the slingshot should probably be a side grade to melee combat with it's ups and downs rather than it being superior and straight up better. But, what things should be done with Walter's slingshot? Well...

 

The Dos

Alot of Walter players i have personally seen have agreed Walter's slingshot should be a tool in combat. You will use the slingshot sometimes, and sometimes a regular melee weapon. Skills could enchance this by:

Making existing rounds more unique and special.

• Gold rounds bouncing to one additional target is a cool idea i have seen alot, also saw someone suggest the idea of marble rounds having damage ramping if continusly shot, stuff like that aswell as new special rounds and better existing special rounds.

Making the Slingshot more flexiable

• I have seen some cool ideas, like hitting a mob with a melee attack temporarly makes your next slingshot shot shoot 2 pellets instantly but with a cooldown.

And Let's not forget increasing the amount of ammo per craft, though this would work better as a base kit buff

 

Extra Woby Utility

Woby is a personal chester which is great utility, and works as a mount, but she could still be expanded upon and do more. She could do unique things to help Walter.

• Cool idea by @kroban which makes Woby pickup items from the grounds, but only items she currently has in her inventory. This is a great example of what could work well for Woby and could be a worthy idea for Klei to consider.

 

These are what i believe Klei should do and avoid with Walter, if you have any Dos and Donts you can suggest more here. I wish Klei luck with making the Walter skill tree!

[Gashzer]

Behold! The perfect Walter skill tree:

https://forums.kleientertainment.com/forums/topic/149175-good-job-klei-on-the-skill-trees-walter-skill-tree/

Yeah but woby should be competitive in the late game with what a beefalo can do. Atleast giving woby a melee bite attack. This bite attack could attack abit slower than a beefalos as to not completely replace one or be op.

My arguement for this is a walter player should never want to ride a beefalo over riding big woby. Buffs to small woby are ok but big woby is the star of Walters perks as per the short.

[Jakepeng99]

1 hour ago, Gashzer said:

Behold! The perfect Walter skill tree:

https://forums.kleientertainment.com/forums/topic/149175-good-job-klei-on-the-skill-trees-walter-skill-tree/

Yeah but woby should be competitive in the late game with what a beefalo can do. Atleast giving woby a melee bite attack. This bite attack could attack abit slower than a beefalos as to not completely replace one or be op.

My arguement for this is a walter player should never want to ride a beefalo over riding big woby. Buffs to small woby are ok but big woby is the star of Walters perks as per the short.

I disagree, Big Woby should offer unique things that beefalos can't do rather than trying to replace a beefalo by doing what they already can do. You could tame a beefalo as Walter, and have reason to use either big Woby or a Beefalo. 

Maybe big Woby could bark at enemies with a right click function to scare them in another direction to defend Walter? Things like that rather than things like making Woby a combat mount just like a beefalo. The bark would indirectly benifit Walter's playstyle and slingshot.

If anything, it should be good to choose a beefalo and big Woby rather than making a Woby a full replacement fot a beefalo. Also Woby melee attacks are really out of character for Woby. Make Big Woby something new and different to ride rather than Beefalo 2

[ShadowDuelist]

2 hours ago, Jakepeng99 said:

Making his slingshot TOO strong

That’s the only DO’s in my book  he should be the ranged character. Not to outclass everything in damage (like Wanda’s weapon) but more like giving him crowd control and a different way to deal about as much damage as melee.
 

Like ranged worked at the forge, it didn’t make you OP it was just another way to play the game.

[Jakepeng99]

28 minutes ago, ShadowDuelist said:

That’s the only DO’s in my book  he should be the ranged character. Not to outclass everything in damage (like Wanda’s weapon) but more like giving him crowd control and a different way to deal about as much damage as melee.
 

Like ranged worked at the forge, it didn’t make you OP it was just another way to play the game.

Yeah that is what i mean exactly, i didn't mean keep it as being weak. I meant not to make it like Woodie's were moose form where it goes from weak and niche to being so strong that you use it for everything since there is not that much reason not to.

[Mysterious box]

3 hours ago, Jakepeng99 said:

Simplifying or negating his sainity downside.

• His downside is actually really well designed even if it needs high skill, it encourages you to use his slingshot and can also award skill in melee combat. It is a fun change on how sainity works for him and makes you play the game alot differently. If you want to tank, use his pinetree hat and some body armour. The fact that it is challenging and unique is what makes Walter fun to play. The only problem with this downside is that the slingshot is underpowered which is what this upside/downside seems to encourage.

This is probably going to happen considering part of the goal of the skill tree is to make the character more accessible regardless of how we feel about it on that front. I imagine they'll either weaken his downside or greatly improve the slingshot as a weapon. This is because it's clear the reason Klei doubled down on his sanity downsides in the first place is because they truly believed that what we had was good for a ranged playstyle despite that being the furthest from the truth. When you get down to it even his crowd control rounds were clearly designed with it being a weapon in mind. For example his poop pellets drop aggro but only to himself and not other mobs and players so he can be attack them while they're distracted. His freeze rounds don't pull aggro and his slowdown rounds were clearly meant to increase the amount of shots you can pull off before they get close to you.

3 hours ago, Jakepeng99 said:

Giving Woby Perks that just make her more like a Beefalo

• It wont work that well, she should probably have unique special utility perks that you would want from her and not from a beefalo.

 

Completely agree here this is what I've been aiming for too as far as Woby goes.

3 hours ago, Jakepeng99 said:

Making his slingshot TOO strong

• This may seem like common sense, but the slingshot should probably be a side grade to melee combat with it's ups and downs rather than it being superior and straight up better. But, what things should be done with Walter's slingshot? Well...

 

The Dos

Alot of Walter players i have personally seen have agreed Walter's slingshot should be a tool in combat. You will use the slingshot sometimes, and sometimes a regular melee weapon. Skills could enchance this by:

Making existing rounds more unique and special.

• Gold rounds bouncing to one additional target is a cool idea i have seen alot, also saw someone suggest the idea of marble rounds having damage ramping if continusly shot, stuff like that aswell as new special rounds and better existing special rounds.

Making the Slingshot more flexiable

• I have seen some cool ideas, like hitting a mob with a melee attack temporarly makes your next slingshot shot shoot 2 pellets instantly but with a cooldown.

And Let's not forget increasing the amount of ammo per craft, though this would work better as a base kit buff

While I'm not against making it a tool if that's the route we go with it then there needs to be a big rework on how it works because it's quite bad as a tool. While I'm not sure which route Klei will take to fix them there are some things that need addressed such as:

1. Freeze rounds being more expensive to make than a ice staff while also being far slower making it just overall worse
2. poop pellets needing a more useful effect as deaggroing one mob is extremely niche
3. Slowdown rounds will likely need to be redone as it only really works in the context of a ranged combat focus doing basically nothing for melee. Perhaps make it effect attack speed?
4. This is more so just personal preference but I feel like the moon rock costs on his higher tier special rounds should be dropped gems are costly enough to just use as ammo.

1 hour ago, Jakepeng99 said:

Yeah that is what i mean exactly, i didn't mean keep it as being weak. I meant not to make it like Woodie's were moose form where it goes from weak and niche to being so strong that you use it for everything since there is not that much reason not to.

I mean it made sense for the moose to become worth using in combat situations it's legitimately it's only function. That being said there are still enough situations where it's not worth using.

When it comes to Walter's slingshot I would prefer it became a weapon worth using since it's a character specific weapon but I'd still settle for it being a useful tool that actually feels rewarding to use I just hope they can make that possible since it'll be harder to make worthwhile on that front even more with the costs of using those abilities being considered.

[Jakepeng99]

45 minutes ago, Mysterious box said:

While I'm not against making it a tool if that's the route we go with it then there needs to be a big rework on how it works because it's quite bad as a tool. While I'm not sure which route Klei will take to fix them there are some things that need addressed such as:

By tool i mean like useful for certain situations, though i just hope they make the slingshot more fun to use without simplifying it to removing some of the cool strategies with it.

 

An intended strategy with the slingshot is using meatshields like followers or other players to safely deal more damage- the thulicite rounds benifit from it the most. Though, often you may aswell just join in for efficent and faster melee combat which will be fixed with improvments to the slingshot hopefully. The idea of damage ramping with marble pellets is an idea i like alot since it would benifit that strategy.

Also i feel like Walter's charm should make him gain extra loyalty from followers like Woodie.

[Mysterious box]

28 minutes ago, Jakepeng99 said:

By tool i mean like useful for certain situations, though i just hope they make the slingshot more fun to use without simplifying it to removing some of the cool strategies with it.

 

An intended strategy with the slingshot is using meatshields like followers or other players to safely deal more damage- the thulicite rounds benifit from it the most. Though, often you may aswell just join in for efficent and faster melee combat which will be fixed with improvments to the slingshot hopefully. The idea of damage ramping with marble pellets is an idea i like alot since it would benifit that strategy.

Also i feel like Walter's charm should make him gain extra loyalty from followers like Woodie.

The problem is any situation you need followers for this they're likely not strong enough to last for the strategy and any situation they can last your slingshot isn't even needed. Walter doesn't have access to more useful combat followers without outside help and by that point you're already committing far too much to a mediocre playstyle. If that's the intention he's going to need followers perks suited to it which is not really the direction I'd want to go with him.

[Jakepeng99]

25 minutes ago, Mysterious box said:

The problem is any situation you need followers for this they're likely not strong enough to last for the strategy and any situation they can last your slingshot isn't even needed. Walter doesn't have access to more useful combat followers without outside help and by that point you're already committing far too much to a mediocre playstyle. If that's the intention he's going to need followers perks suited to it which is not really the direction I'd want to go with him.

Non character exclusive Followers should be buffed in general

[Mysterious box]

9 minutes ago, Jakepeng99 said:

Non character exclusive Followers should be buffed in general

I'm split on it if you buff non character specific followers then character specific ones need to be that much stronger to justify them leading to a unending arms race.

That also still doesn't fix the slingshot not contributing anything in group combat scenarios.

A scenario where you have more effective followers means it's actually cheaper just to recruit those followers to fight on your behalf instead.

A situation where your in a group of players means that your contributions with the slingshot are so insignificant that you may as well just be cheering for them.

A situation where your just with one other player while using a slingshot means they're forced to fight more aggressively than normal if they want to avoid you pulling aggro as if they don't hit super often you'll still pull the aggro away from them messing up their kiting if you fire too often while they're kiting.

This all before considering the time investment the slingshot requires to even use it to begin with.

[Jakepeng99]

7 minutes ago, Mysterious box said:

A situation where your just with one other player while using a slingshot means they're forced to fight more aggressively than normal if they want to avoid you pulling aggro as if they don't hit super often you'll still pull the aggro away from them messing up their kiting if you fire too often while they're kiting.

The slingshot has a built in mechanic that makes it not steal aggro, that wont happen.

[Mysterious box]

16 minutes ago, Jakepeng99 said:

The slingshot has a built in mechanic that makes it not steal aggro, that wont happen.

It does that's why I mentioned it. The time it takes to kite can make the mechanic wear off if you don't have enough sources of damage.