Game balance and game's direction poll.

[Castiliano]

20 minutes ago, grm9 said:

so what's your suggested solution? Remove/nerf character swapping to annoy people that use it and change nothing for people that don't?

Personally, I would just put a cooldown on the portal for the player who used it. Just to avoid ABUSE of the mechanics. It would be ok to switch characters, but on the condition that the player wouldn't be compulsively switching. Anyway, just a crude idea, I imagine there must be better ones out there.

7 minutes ago, arubaro said:

Isnt the same lol. Nobody forces you to use maxwell instead of wicker. If you want to play as maxwell do it

If you are a min max maniac isnt wicker's design fault

Actually in my megabase world i have played quite a bit of wicker but never touched maxwell, also i played warly the most because i find it fun, way funnier than simply using his foods with other characters.. seems like klei dont know my adress to treat me with a gun in my head to switch characters

It's exactly the same thing. Imagine others characters using Maxwell's codex umbra, which is what's happening through a command/mod. It doesn't make sense, because it's his book, his perk. At least, in the past, books ran out (thankfully not anymore), but needed a Wickerbottom to craft them again.

When something is in the game is a fact, this argument that players should just ignore some fact is totally silly.

Edited February 26 by Castiliano

[Uedo]

In my opinion, the game isn't balanced to the degree it could/should be, however I still find it fun, so much so that I enjoy it... generally.

Ultimately though; The niche of DST isn't particularly interesting any more, to me at least. Every bit of content feels like a tug to consider the game again, you do, s'alright, rinse and repeat. 

Just retire the game before it becomes even more diffuse, let the cow rest, she's old and out of milk

[grm9]

5 minutes ago, Castiliano said:

Personally, I would just put a cooldown on the portal for the player who used it. Just to avoid ABUSE of the mechanics. It would be ok to switch characters, but on the condition that the player wouldn't be compulsively switching. Anyway, just a crude idea, I imagine there must be better ones out there

i wouldn't want that, that'd make swapping to warly to get potatoes for astroggles impossible and make getting goggles require good seeds RNG, meanwhile if you think that swapping to warly/winona/wurt just to build their stuff is bad, then you can not do that without making other people enjoy the game less

[Uedo]

7 minutes ago, Castiliano said:

Personally, I would just put a cooldown on the portal for the player who used it. Just to avoid ABUSE of the mechanics. It would be ok to switch characters, but on the condition that the player wouldn't be compulsively switching. Anyway, just a crude idea, I imagine there must be better ones out there.

It's exactly the same thing. Imagine others characters using Maxwell's codex umbra, which is what's happening through a command/mod. It doesn't make sense, because it's his book, his perk. When something is in the game is a fact, this argument that players should just ignore some fact is totally silly. At least, in the past, books ran out (thankfully not anymore), but needed a Wickerbottom to craft them again.

There's already a cost, remove the cost and introduce a cooldown then. People already pay a price to switch.

[arubaro]

10 minutes ago, Castiliano said:

Personally, I would just put a cooldown on the portal for the player who used it. Just to avoid ABUSE of the mechanics. It would be ok to switch characters, but on the condition that the player wouldn't be compulsively switching. Anyway, just a crude idea, I imagine there must be better ones out there.

It's exactly the same thing. Imagine others characters using Maxwell's codex umbra, which is what's happening through a command/mod. It doesn't make sense, because it's his book, his perk. At least, in the past, books ran out (thankfully not anymore), but needed a Wickerbottom to craft them again.

When something is in the game is a fact, this argument that players should just ignore some fact is totally silly.

Whatever. I will still enjoying warly and wicker because klei wont make any stupid change to nerf the portal because few people cant enjoy characters for some edgy rick trauma

[Castiliano]

3 minutes ago, grm9 said:

i wouldn't want that, that'd make swapping to warly to get potatoes for astroggles impossible and make getting goggles require good seeds RNG, meanwhile if you think that swapping to warly/winona/wurt just to build their stuff is bad, then you can not do that without making other people enjoy the game less

yes, I get your point. I always hope that the changes will also bring with them improvements in what leads players to do that, to abuse a mechanic, to use cheeses or exploits. An example of this is the discussion that is going on around the void walk. It would be totally OK for Klei to fix this, but at the same time bringing improvements to the RNG of finding the tentacle that leads to the Atrium and other things besides.

 

5 minutes ago, Uedo said:

There's already a cost, remove the cost and introduce a cooldown then. People already pay a price to switch.

I totally agree that discussing the price is fair, including modifying it. Certain things in the game have improved because people have discussed it here, such as the value of Clean Sweeper, and other items.

14 minutes ago, arubaro said:

Whatever. I will still enjoying warly and wicker because klei wont make any stupid change to nerf the portal because few people cant enjoy characters for some edgy rick trauma

It's totally okay if you're the type of person who likes to abuse mechanics
At least I'm proud that we're in the perfect place to discuss and ask for changes or not

[grm9]

30 minutes ago, Castiliano said:

It would be totally OK for Klei to fix this, but at the same time bringing improvements to the RNG of finding the tentacle that leads to the Atrium and other things besides

it'd be better to keep voidwalking if it won't prevent them from adding new stuff anyway in case their solutions'll be worse than voidwalking

[arubaro]

45 minutes ago, Castiliano said:

It's totally okay if you're the type of person who likes to abuse mechanics

Thats the thing, i dont abuse mechanics still i dont think is necessary to change or nerf how swaping character works. I actually enjoy some of the called "swap" characters like warly and wicker and when i dont play these characters i dont use their books/foods with others, i play them because i enjoy them 

Is like asking to buff wilson, willow, weeber, etc just because wolfgang+celestial portal exists... do you play not meta chatacters or do you feel the urge of min max because reasons??? is a sand box, is okey to have diverse ways of playing and if some want to abuse celestial portal is their problem, anyways i doubt any player abuse it before beating the entire game

[Uedo]

1 hour ago, Castiliano said:

I totally agree that discussing the price is fair, including modifying it. Certain things in the game have improved because people have discussed it here, such as the value of Clean Sweeper, and other items.

I wasn't remotely clear with the point I was loosely trying to make, I was being coy. Ultimately the cost is just arbitrary, even if it were expensive the value from switching is always gonna be worth it. If switching was unbelievably expensive, i'd still do it if I wanted to, all you're doing is slowing down the speed at which I do it. 

I think switching is a crutch, I don't use it often, but there are times I will. If you're spamming it, that's on the player, which is fine anyways - it's a game, if you're getting your moneys worth that's the goal right? 

I don't think it's a problem to be honest, I don't think there's an actual problem with the usage that is compelling at all, I don't know how you could possibly abuse character switching. 

inb4 wicker/maxwell arguement - I get that wicker feels overshadowed by maxwell due to the books. Whether it's fair/weak/strong or not, If you removed wicker as a character, maxwell would lose some of his abilities (no books), this demonstrates synergy - without one the other is not the same. Wicker gets more raw of a deal with perks to sleep and reduced sanity loss from reading the books. I feel we can overlook the wicker example as her books are in a weird place, I'd say it was unfair if Wurt also didn't benefit from the books - clearly books are designed to be shared with select other survivors. 
Wicker is clearly gonna have some form of redemption when the skill tree comes, so i feel we can bench this argument for now.

Edited February 26 by Uedo

[Castiliano]

18 minutes ago, Uedo said:

I wasn't remotely clear with the point I was loosely trying to make, I was being coy. Ultimately the cost is just arbitrary, even if it were expensive the value from switching is always gonna be worth it. If switching was unbelievably expensive, i'd still do it if I wanted to, all you're doing is slowing down the speed at which I do it. 

It think switching is a crutch, I don't use it often, but there are times I will. If you're spamming it, that's on the player, which is fine anyways - it's a game, if you're getting your moneys worth that's the goal right? 

I don't think it's a problem to be honest, I don't think there's an actual problem with the usage that is compelling at all, I don't know how you could possibly abuse character switching. 

I don't see a problem with changing characters the way you're thinking. I see a problem with switching to Wanda 10 times in a row in the same minute to farm the items (of course there's the discussion of the players that can't host caves) or switching to Warly just to make the spices and switching in the same minute to another character again. Assuming that I think this is a way of disrespecting these characters and their particular gameplay, that's why i see a problem with this. Slowing down the process would prevent or hinder this abuse, not preventing those who just want to switch characters for the experience of playing with another character.

 

edit: plus, the way it currently is, it diminishes the power that is the choice of a character to play the world. If in exchange for the resources, this leaves you playing with all 18 characters "AT THE SAME TIME". So, there is the question of the point of view of those who can look at this and think: cool. Or the opposite of that, my case. So I think the cooldown would solve that part of "at the same time".

Edited February 26 by Castiliano

[Uedo]

1 minute ago, Castiliano said:

I don't see a problem with changing characters the way you're thinking. I see a problem with switching to Wanda 10 times in a row in the same minute to farm the items (of course there's the discussion of the players that can't host caves) or switching to Warly just to make the spices and switching in the same minute to another character again. Assuming that I think this is a way of disrespecting these characters and their particular gameplay, that's why i see a problem with this. Slowing down the process would prevent or hinder this abuse, not preventing those who just want to switch characters for the experience of playing with another character.

That just a huge purple gem sink, i'd imagine you wouldn't have all of those gems without having already accessed the materials you're trying to spawn-dupe. 

[Chaghatai]

On 2/23/2024 at 1:12 PM, Swiyss said:

So you're basically saying that if another character has a sinergy with them, they are too "Overpowered" and that should not be the case.. in a non-competitive game where Wx78+Wickerbottom was once consider to be fun.

Why are you so concerned about others having fun? Just because THAT character isn't the spotlight of it's own skills doesn't equal to it being useless. They can still use their perks.

It's not really synergy though - it's just concentration of perks onto one character

There shouldn't be a situation where one character feels like a utility unlock for another - there needs to be enough reason to play Wicker to actually be the one to read the books and not just craft them

[Cheggf]

33 minutes ago, Chaghatai said:

It's not really synergy though - it's just concentration of perks onto one character

There shouldn't be a situation where one character feels like a utility unlock for another - there needs to be enough reason to play Wicker to actually be the one to read the books and not just craft them

What is the reason to stay on Wolfgang/Wigfrid/Webber/Wendy/Willow when you aren't fighting? What is the reason to stay on Warly when you aren't cooking? What is the reason to stay on Winona when you aren't building? What is the reason to stay on Wilson when it isn't winter? All of the arguments against Maxwell being able to read Wickerbottom's books, Warly being able to make food for other people, or Winona being able to make catapults are not actually arguments against any of those things, because the arguments can apply to literally every single character. You guys are complaining about the Celestial Portal allowing you to change characters, but disguising it as complaints about specific characters.

[Popian]

1 hour ago, Chaghatai said:

there needs to be enough reason to play Wicker to actually be the one to read the books and not just craft them

The sanity comes into play if you want to use Enlightened Crown with Banana Shakes. 2 reads of Horticulture nets 8-13 spells that you would probably not normally use as Maxwell.

If you wear Bone Helm all the the time and sanity stays at 0 Maxwell is a better choice for having more spells to play with.

[Yuuko]

2 hours ago, Cheggf said:

What is the reason to stay on Wolfgang/Wigfrid/Webber/Wendy/Willow when you aren't fighting?

Thing is - you'd switch back to them when you wanted to do their thing again.

When would you switch back to Wicker?  When you accidentally read a book too many times?

[Cheggf]

7 hours ago, Yuuko said:

Thing is - you'd switch back to them when you wanted to do their thing again.

When would you switch back to Wicker?  When you accidentally read a book too many times?

Why does it matter? How is it okay for you to switch to Wickerbottom to make a farm then switch off of her and never play her again, but switching to Wickerbottom to make books for Maxwell then switch off of her and never play her again is suddenly a bad thing? I don't really see any distinction here, especially considering those other characters you can swap to can also be made entirely redundant. If you've made things to automate mob farming and boss killing, why would you ever switch back to a combat character?

[grm9]

52 minutes ago, Cheggf said:

How is it okay for you to switch to Wickerbottom to make a farm then switch off of her and never play her again

pretty sure they were thinking about actively playing as her to use rain book, bee book, temperature book, farming book etc. unless you're going to swap to her every time rain starts or you want to grow plants or winter or summer starts and you want to use temperature book or you're going to fight something

57 minutes ago, Cheggf said:

If you've made things to automate mob farming and boss killing, why would you ever switch back to a combat character?

because it might still be better to speed up fights if possible, assuming you're going to kill multiple things in a row at least?

[Chaghatai]

On 2/27/2024 at 7:38 AM, Cheggf said:

Why does it matter? How is it okay for you to switch to Wickerbottom to make a farm then switch off of her and never play her again, but switching to Wickerbottom to make books for Maxwell then switch off of her and never play her again is suddenly a bad thing? I don't really see any distinction here, especially considering those other characters you can swap to can also be made entirely redundant. If you've made things to automate mob farming and boss killing, why would you ever switch back to a combat character?

It's one thing to switch to another character to complete a task, but another when that task is "transfer their abilities to your "main"

Bottom line is, there needs to be a reason to play Wicker as the "active" character - one character should not be "subordinate" to another

There should be a trade off between having Maxwells perks vs Wickers abilities when it comes to actually playing them, not "lol both" by playing Maxwell 

[Cheggf]

2 hours ago, Chaghatai said:

It's one thing to switch to another character to complete a task, but another when that task is "transfer their abilities to your "main"

Why? Why is that another thing? What's the difference?

2 hours ago, Chaghatai said:

Bottom line is, there needs to be a reason to play Wicker as the "active" character - one character should not be "subordinate" to another

If you want to be a sweaty tryhard about it, there's no reason to play as literally anyone other than Maxwell. All other characters are "subordinate" to him. This is either an issue with the Celestial Portal or your mindset. Wickerbottom is a very popular character with tons of people playing as her. You guys are genuinely making up this issue in your head and feeling like you aren't allowed to play Wickerbottom for some reason.

2 hours ago, Chaghatai said:

There should be a trade off between having Maxwells perks vs Wickers abilities when it comes to actually playing them, not "lol both" by playing Maxwell 

Your issue with the character who is by far the fastest gatherer of ALL types of resources, and also the best at fighting, and also has an expanded inventory, and also can teleport items around, and also has infinite sanity, and also has several other smaller things he can do, and also he gets all of that for free from DAY ONE, with the only things he's not the best at being a couple of single-use things that he can swap to someone else to accomplish (like setting up something requiring Wickerbottom/Winona), isn't any of that. All of that is okay, perfectly acceptable. The problem with the character is that when he uses the much weaker items from a different character, the items that he could just use the Celestial Portal to swap to her anyways because the only books that are actually useful for a sweaty tryhard are not useful day to day and are just things that you set up once, he can use them without more penalty than Wickerbottom.

[Swiyss]

1 hour ago, Cheggf said:

Why? Why is that another thing? What's the difference?

If you want to be a sweaty tryhard about it, there's no reason to play as literally anyone other than Maxwell. All other characters are "subordinate" to him. This is either an issue with the Celestial Portal or your mindset. Wickerbottom is a very popular character with tons of people playing as her. You guys are genuinely making up this issue in your head and feeling like you aren't allowed to play Wickerbottom for some reason.

Your issue with the character who is by far the fastest gatherer of ALL types of resources, and also the best at fighting, and also has an expanded inventory, and also can teleport items around, and also has infinite sanity, and also has several other smaller things he can do, and also he gets all of that for free from DAY ONE, with the only things he's not the best at being a couple of single-use things that he can swap to someone else to accomplish (like setting up something requiring Wickerbottom/Winona), isn't any of that. All of that is okay, perfectly acceptable. The problem with the character is that when he uses the much weaker items from a different character, the items that he could just use the Celestial Portal to swap to her anyways because the only books that are actually useful for a sweaty tryhard are not useful day to day and are just things that you set up once, he can use them without more penalty than Wickerbottom.

The things is, there should be more ways to call wickerbottom a librarian. There should be a more set advantage and disadvantage when it comes to her perks, other than the books. The reason that I think this way is only because I know it may be frustrating to think your favorite character perks can be used by another, stronger and better character. Besides calling her a "support" type of character, it would be better to say that her books can be used by some, but still it is better on her, or she had something to her, for only her. Maxwell cannot trick her twice, she already was sent to the constant, and then her only knowledge being written out, to then be conquered by him.

Actually, not that big of a deal really, but gameplay wise, she could have something more going on that only she can do.

[arubaro]

Isnt the reason to play wicker not being maxwell neither any other character enough? Is like the stupid complains about being able to cook as warly and switch to other characters..

[Cheggf]

6 minutes ago, Swiyss said:

The things is, there should be more ways to call wickerbottom a librarian. There should be a more set advantage and disadvantage when it comes to her perks, other than the books

Do you want her to gain the ability to nag the other survivors about late fees or being too loud? 

7 minutes ago, Swiyss said:

The reason that I think this way is only because I know it may be frustrating to think your favorite character perks can be used by another, stronger and better character.

Why? You are choosing to do that. Wickerbottom is in my top 3 most played characters, and Maxwell is in my top 1 never played characters because he's so boring. In order for Maxwell to actually use Wickerbottom's perks you need to play on the same world for like 9+ hours to even have the suspicious boulder spawn, and you need to do gather 22 moonrocks and 3 purple gems, and you need to gather hundreds of reeds and all the other crap to make Wickerbottom's books. By the time it takes you to do all of this, you could have just done everything. You could've beat the whole game.

But again, if you want to be a sweaty tryhard about stuff, why ever play anyone except Maxwell or maybe Wanda? Why is it okay for Maxwell to be better than everyone else, but when he's better than Wickerbottom there's a problem?

16 minutes ago, Swiyss said:

Actually, not that big of a deal really, but gameplay wise, she could have something more going on that only she can do.

She's already a very good character, she doesn't need to double jump and deal double damage just because you guys are scared of Maxwell. The only things I want from her skill tree are new books and books slowly repairing while you hold them, to encourage utilization of her lesser used books without relying on frequent returns to the bookcase.

[Swiyss]

19 minutes ago, Cheggf said:

Do you want her to gain the ability to nag the other survivors about late fees or being too loud? 

Why? You are choosing to do that. Wickerbottom is in my top 3 most played characters, and Maxwell is in my top 1 never played characters because he's so boring. In order for Maxwell to actually use Wickerbottom's perks you need to play on the same world for like 9+ hours to even have the suspicious boulder spawn, and you need to do gather 22 moonrocks and 3 purple gems, and you need to gather hundreds of reeds and all the other crap to make Wickerbottom's books. By the time it takes you to do all of this, you could have just done everything. You could've beat the whole game.

But again, if you want to be a sweaty tryhard about stuff, why ever play anyone except Maxwell or maybe Wanda? Why is it okay for Maxwell to be better than everyone else, but when he's better than Wickerbottom there's a problem?

She's already a very good character, she doesn't need to double jump and deal double damage just because you guys are scared of Maxwell. The only things I want from her skill tree are new books and books slowly repairing while you hold them, to encourage utilization of her lesser used books without relying on frequent returns to the bookcase.

I had many views of wicker mains presented to me, but I respect yours the most. I really hope that klei listens to you when her skillset beta comes out, so we can use the correct mindset while projecting her tree.

So yeah, I agree and will protect this idea from now on. Still I think there could be.. you know, something else going on for her maybe outside of the books.

[Chaghatai]

2 hours ago, Cheggf said:

Why? Why is that another thing? What's the difference?

If you want to be a sweaty tryhard about it, there's no reason to play as literally anyone other than Maxwell. All other characters are "subordinate" to him. This is either an issue with the Celestial Portal or your mindset. Wickerbottom is a very popular character with tons of people playing as her. You guys are genuinely making up this issue in your head and feeling like you aren't allowed to play Wickerbottom for some reason.

Your issue with the character who is by far the fastest gatherer of ALL types of resources, and also the best at fighting, and also has an expanded inventory, and also can teleport items around, and also has infinite sanity, and also has several other smaller things he can do, and also he gets all of that for free from DAY ONE, with the only things he's not the best at being a couple of single-use things that he can swap to someone else to accomplish (like setting up something requiring Wickerbottom/Winona), isn't any of that. All of that is okay, perfectly acceptable. The problem with the character is that when he uses the much weaker items from a different character, the items that he could just use the Celestial Portal to swap to her anyways because the only books that are actually useful for a sweaty tryhard are not useful day to day and are just things that you set up once, he can use them without more penalty than Wickerbottom.

All of that is a reason to nerf Maxwell, not to retain the current state of affairs

It shouldn't be controversial to say that there should be a reason for a minimaxer to actually be playing Wickerbottom as the character who reads the books and not just crafts them

[Echsrick]

is the game balanced?- no...like some pot food that are harder to make then good old meatballs are not worth makin, and thats just 1 of the many "not balanced" parts

do i enjoy it?- i wish it would some things better and more balanced for sure but other then that the game as a whole is enjoyable

current direction?- you mean the planar shehanigans? not a fan of it like at all and i feel like it realy could have been better

klei goes slower- i mean....i have to see the not released product of new updates to make a real oppinion out of it

difficulty- well...i think its fine in a way....i mean, if you say unfair design is hard then its not a good difficulty but unfair difficulty, yes it is hard but not with a good design and thats not in a good way to do difficulty