A letdown for Wurt

[Masked Koopa]

Now I should preface this by saying that I am very happy with the mutated merms existing - they look funny as hell. Merms being able to finally dig up stumps is also a very welcomed feature. Merm king quests is a really cool idea although I haven't had an opportunity to test them out. I think HP regen while wet is a great idea to ease gameplay for new Wurt players. I also think the Armermy and Tool shed are good for wurt's civilisation theming.

But I also cannot help but notice a lack of changing direction on the other skills. Maybe those three weeks were soley focused on just polishing up everything for the beta, but I seriously hope this isn't an attempt to blatantly ignore community concensus on the mediocrity of the merm feeder and mosquito items. The response to the mosquito items especially has been easily the most unianimous I have ever seen the forums on not wanting a feature for a character, especially given the large number of other features people would like to see on her. Seriously - if ya'll remove the bleh and blah skills and istead add some farming merms and fishermerms I guarantee you people will be absolutely over the moon and this update will probably be referred back to with the same praise as reap what you sow.

I also wanna caution ya'll - please for the love of Alter, don't try to do minimalist "fixes" to these skills. These items cannot be fixed with simple stat buffs, they need to be entirely reconceptualised or removed.

My take on the skills that need changes on a conceptual level (i.e no matter how powerful they are buffed to be they are still a bad fit):

• Mosquito skills
  • All of them.
    • No I'm not going to explain why it has been done so very thouroughly at this point.
• Sanity regen while wet.
  • Sanity isn't a big issue with Wurt's free top hat's worth of sanity via holding a fish - you can very easily get Tam o' shanter levels of sanity by stacking fish + top hat.
• Merm feeding dish.
  • Merms already respawn very quickly, and it feels like the only use-case would be for winter's lowered spawn rates.
    • But the thing is, that mechanic has already been bugged for almost half a decade at this point. The first respawn ends up happening at the normal rate, and realistically that's about how often you're going to get your entire merm army wiped out in the span of only 15 days.
    • It's also just kind of stupid to introduce a skill as a bandaid fix to a downside that shouldn't have existed in the first place and was never actually properly communicated in any way.
• Temperature change negation from wetness
  • Just the same thing as the previous skill - Wurt should have had been able to ignore downsides from being wet in the first place. It took until RWYS for her to finally not lose sanity from wetness, and it's only now that she doesn't freeze.
  • Just back this into the base kit.
• Sharing marsh speed boost.
  • We don't have any reason to use marsh turf over cobblestones so this is very early game which isn't at all Wurt's playstyle domain.

My take on skills that could replace these:

High effort (adds new mobs/items/complex mechanics):

• Fishermerms
• Farmerms
• The ability to swim
• Letting merms gather items for you
• Some way to summon rain
• The ability to create ponds and/or mosquito "bee boxes".

Low effort (easier to add but won't be as well received)

• Speed boost while wet
• Small damage boost to Wurt from Merm king being alive
• Gain wetness while on marsh turf
• Some additional interaction with Wicker's books and/or library.

[marshyds]

Remember to shamelessly bump this up every 2 days so it remains here forever.

Anyway, even 2 merms that arent focused on combat wouldve made her skilltree peak, yeah.

Swimming might be unbalanced, but that can be redirected for the fisher merms instead (giving them dual use!)

Summoning rain is iffy, but could work as a final skill for the amphibian branch (The branch could also include the ocean merms)

Farmermerms could do the gathering part further down their skilltree branch.

Generally, i really agree!

[Mortalbane]

I agree with most of the thoughts

Except few details, like
- don't summon rain, no one likes it but you
- swimming probably won't be added, and there are a lot of technical, gameplay and and logical reasons for that

[Mysterious box]

42 minutes ago, Masked Koopa said:

Mosquito skills

• All of them.
  • No I'm not going to explain why it has been done so very thouroughly at this point.

 

I'll take a stab at this after having done a fair bit of play testing starting from the top:

• Mosquito healing skill: it only heals 1 merm at a time which fails on multiple levels
  • You have a horde of merms so trying to heal just one is pointless
  • You can't tell if a merm is injured or not without mods
  • Trying to heal a merm in combat takes them out of combat lowering your dps and increasing the odds of getting your horde wiped
• Skeeter bomb: The skill is too expensive, bad ai, and has bad synergy with her existing playstyle. In order to craft this you need a bug net to catch mosquitos that's 4 sticks, 2 silk, and 1 rope and to craft the bomb itself you need 4 mosqutios and 1 sack which gets you 1 skeeter bomb which deals 59 damage and summons the mosquitos you put into it. What they aggro is random and they'll even attack your own merms causing infighting. This isn't even getting to the part that a bug net only has 10 uses meaning you can only craft 2.5 skeeter bombers per bug net for a item this bad it's absurd really.
• little itchy: I can't for the life of me understand why this doll doesn't just allow you to pick up mosquitos flying around or stop mosquitos from attacking your merms.
• Fertilizeer: Just why? Even Woodworms don't use this for farming and his is multi purpose and stronger.

10 minutes ago, marshyds said:

Farmermerms could do the gathering part further down their skilltree branch.

Honestly at this point it baffles me that they just decided to give normal merms the ability to dig up stumps and stopped short of making them collect the loot for Wurt when this is part of Maxwell's base kit without skill points or additional crafts...

[niplu]

what if we combine the Skeeter bomb with the healer skill, so it will release 3-4 mosquitoes who will fly around and heal your merms?

[GreenBowers]

5 minutes ago, niplu said:

what if we combine the Skeeter bomb with the healer skill, so it will release 3-4 mosquitoes who will fly around and heal your merms?

Stinging Merms to heal them sounds kind of big brain, actually.

[marshyds]

9 minutes ago, niplu said:

what if we combine the Skeeter bomb with the healer skill, so it will release 3-4 mosquitoes who will fly around and heal your merms?

same issue, merms are already ridiculously disposable and tanky

[Masked Koopa]

47 minutes ago, marshyds said:

Swimming might be unbalanced

56 minutes ago, Mortalbane said:

swimming probably won't be added, and there are a lot of technical, gameplay and and logical reasons for that

As someone who plays with their own Wurt swimming mod almost religiously - it isn't at all bad for gameplay. The only real candidate for full on cheese would have been Crab King, but he has been reworked to make this a complete non-issue. Boats are WAY faster than players with any decent number of players, and can carry a bunch of very useful conviniences like heat/cold sources, infinite item storage, Pinch n' winch, Tin fishin' bin, etc.

Despite having no stamina or any sort of duration limitation, swimming just wasn't as OP as I envisioned before implementing it. Sure you can grab kelp from shallows, but a grass boat lets you do that too, and kelp isn't exactly better than carrots. For finding islands it is MUCH, MUCH worse than the only pretty-good Weregoose.

Truth be told I think swimming is probably over-hyped in terms of what it actually provides, it's little more than minor QOL which legitimately makes it a great candidate for a skill tree point.

That having been said Klei could also just add swimming to the entire cast instead of making it Wurt-specific, and simply make Wurt far and away the best swimmer.

Also Mortalbane - the technical hurdles aren't all that bad. I will admit I cribbed a lot of my code from another mod, but overall it's not too different to how hounds are already able to jump in and out of water.
 

57 minutes ago, marshyds said:

Summoning rain is iffy, but could work as a final skill for the amphibian branch

56 minutes ago, Mortalbane said:

don't summon rain, no one likes it but you

For better or worse, we already live in a world where Wickerbottom can do this exact thing, and thanks to Pearl trading for Down Feather floats, it isn't even locked to spring. I would also like to point out that most players do in fact prefer rain over the usual effects of summer, as it disables Antlion, Wildfires, Withering and Sandstorms all at the same time. I play with friends and we have our Maxwell summon rain for summer very consistently.

Also rain would be excellent as a capstone to Wurt's Amphibian branch as marshyds has already said, providing a consistent source of Wetness. Additionally, it'd synergise with WX78's electric circuit, Wigfrid's spear, and Warly's jelly. Not to mention it'd help Wormwoods out with farming.

I do understand the concern over griefing other players, but this is also a concern that seems to crop up over a bazillion other characters and their perks as well. Oh no, Woodie is gonna tail slam the base. Oh no, Wicker is gonna summon full moons to grief the Woodies. I think as long as its a toggle and it's at least slightly out of the way to get (i.e down feathers or strident trident or merm king or something) it's a non-issue.

[Masked Koopa]

12 minutes ago, SSneaky said:

Doesn't mean that they can't last even longer in fights

I think instead of focusing on combat further, that slot would be better suited toward increasing the range of Wurt's abilities. Maxwell is the king of utility right now, but he has access to those powers almost immediately. Why not make Wurt the Maxwell of lategame? I think that'd be better received by fans anyway - people think Maxwell's downside is not impactful, wheras most agree than Wurt's lack of meat eating is a pretty substantial downside. Plus, Wurt's utility all comes at a setup time and resoure cost.

[marshyds]

14 minutes ago, Masked Koopa said:

think instead of focusing on combat further, that slot would be better suited toward increasing the range of Wurt's abilities. Maxwell is the king of utility right now, but he has access to those powers almost immediately. Why not make Wurt the Maxwell of lategame? I think that'd be better received by fans anyway - people think Maxwell's downside is not impactful, wheras most agree than Wurt's lack of meat eating is a pretty substantial downside. Plus, Wurt's utility all comes at a setup time and resoure cost.

THIS. Wurt mains love grinding anyway, just give her ludicrously expensive good utility!

[Mortalbane]

2 hours ago, Masked Koopa said:

As someone who plays with their own Wurt swimming mod almost religiously

As i said, swimming has several reasons to not be implemented. Among others is logic - frogs don't swim in salty water =) Merms look pretty freshwater to me, idk this aspect of lore
As you said, swimming is overrated anyway, so why even bother. I mean, it's better than mosquitoes, but still kinda aint worth it

2 hours ago, Masked Koopa said:

For better or worse, we already live in a world where Wickerbottom

Ofc rain would benefit Wurt, but doesn't mean she should be able to summon it. Let Wicker have it with her magic. Synergy between characters imo is better than them replacing each other.
The only case when i'd love to see Wurt summoning rain is if Klei would make a tribal rain dance with your merms. A whole short ritual with special animations and music.
But if they would be willing to pour their efforts in merms, i'd rather like them to make farmerms and fishermerms first

[marshyds]

12 minutes ago, Mortalbane said:

The only case when i'd love to see Wurt summoning rain is if Klei would make a tribal rain dance with your merms.

Would it have a cost of like lighting a bonfire? 

The bonfire would cost something like a blue gem and something from the ocean?

[Mortalbane]

1 hour ago, marshyds said:

Would it have a cost of like lighting a bonfire? 

The bonfire would cost something like a blue gem and something from the ocean?

I was thinking a pig sacrifice xD

[Copyafriend]

im not that big of a wurt fan, but my wife is and she likes the amphibious tree, she likes the sanity over time and likes the damage protection when wet/healing over time.

[Jakepeng99]

Some of the wetness skills are cool but it feels flawed as a concept.

I will be honest, most are neat for what they are. (The sainity one is kinda useless, and the hp regen might be op)

[flamboyant wolf]

3 hours ago, marshyds said:

same issue, merms are already ridiculously disposable and tanky

not to mention that they get even tankier with the marble buff and the armory now. Couple that with the trident and crown buffs and what can even oppose you at that point.

On the topic of the discussion, yeah. Fishermerms.

[marshyds]

36 minutes ago, skile said:

not to mention that they get even tankier with the marble buff and the armory now. Couple that with the trident and crown buffs and what can even oppose you at that point.

On the topic of the discussion, yeah. Fishermerms.

AOE damage, but i think its still a fair counter to merms

[Mysterious box]

Just now, marshyds said:

AOE damage, but i think its still a fair counter to merms

Honestly with all the defense boosts merm guards should get from these skills I'd be confused if aoe bosses are still a threat to them.

[Mortalbane]

2 hours ago, SSneaky said:

he said over-hyped not overrated.

and Wurt already canonically swims to shore instead of drowning

in this specific case kinda same. For example, in my super massive WW rework i also suggested a skill that lets you create Grass Gators and swim on them. But do i really need it? No, would just be fun, same as for Wurt.

Swimming to shore in emergency and regular swimming is not the same. Again, i see merms as freshwater creatures. If it's not true, then swimming makes sense. But i personally still won't need it. Not more than farmerms at least

[Copyafriend]

i have an idea for wurt: fish pond

basically wurt can make a fish farm where you can add a sea fish and then feed it to multiply it. remove fish with the sea fishing rod one at a time.

good for trading with the merm king, and also for storing temperature fish for later.

[Veyred]

2 hours ago, Mortalbane said:

As i said, swimming has several reasons to not be implemented. Among others is logic - frogs don't swim in salty water =) Merms look pretty freshwater to me, idk this aspect of lore

Merms  now have anohter building the community feeder that requires kelp fonds  which they eat,

and considereing thers nothing in the swamp for them to eat,

 its most likely that they eat kelp in the ocean aswell and they get there by swiming. (makes more sense lorewise dosent it?)

 

nevermind the whole thing with them going into the ocean in the gorge.

[Mortalbane]

1 hour ago, Veyred said:

Merms  now have anohter building the community feeder that requires kelp fonds  which they eat,

and considereing thers nothing in the swamp for them to eat,

 its most likely that they eat kelp in the ocean aswell and they get there by swiming. (makes more sense lorewise dosent it?)

Yeah, it actually does make sense. Idk why i forgot kelp
I take back my words that i see merms as freshwater =)

[marshyds]

10 minutes ago, Veyred said:

its most likely that they eat kelp in the ocean aswell and they get there by swiming. (makes more sense lorewise dosent it?)

also they canonically swam to the constant judging by the gorge

[BeastNleashed]

2 hours ago, Copyafriend said:

im not that big of a wurt fan, but my wife is and she likes the amphibious tree, she likes the sanity over time and likes the damage protection when wet/healing over time.

I don't get why you wouldn't just eat stuff to instant get alot of Sanity or health back. Get it back over times for em  sounds like its only worth when you exploring or stand semi afk in base. Also 1 HP every 10 Seconds doesn't seem good at all to me. 

Also why we get a skill that disable freezing by wetness and not make it basekit, when we need to be wet for the rest of the skills?

And how should we even be able to constantly be wet? making 1 million Waterballoons? Rowing every 8 minutes till we full wet again? but then we go next to a firepit or furnace and instant we dried up.
Lets say its Winter, we constantly have a hot thermal or Sunfish with us so we dont freeze, or we constantly stay near firepit/furnace/star dont you Dry up super quick then?
And whats with Spring? Its THE Season for Rain but we would be stupid to wear an Eyebrella because we don't get when we wear it, but yay we maybe get alot of lightning strikes for free. 


Also versus Freezing we could just use a fish or Thermal, and vs low Sanity we could also take a fish. 

I don't know i just don't find anything good in her build only King Buffs (not the hunger ones) and maybe Lunar mermses. 

[Copyafriend]

22 minutes ago, BeastNleashed said:

I don't get why you wouldn't just eat stuff to instant get alot of Sanity or health back. Get it back over times for em  sounds like its only worth when you exploring or stand semi afk in base. Also 1 HP every 10 Seconds doesn't seem good at all to me. 

Also why we get a skill that disable freezing by wetness and not make it basekit, when we need to be wet for the rest of the skills?

And how should we even be able to constantly be wet? making 1 million Waterballoons? Rowing every 8 minutes till we full wet again? but then we go next to a firepit or furnace and instant we dried up.
Lets say its Winter, we constantly have a hot thermal or Sunfish with us so we dont freeze, or we constantly stay near firepit/furnace/star dont you Dry up super quick then?
And whats with Spring? Its THE Season for Rain but we would be stupid to wear an Eyebrella because we don't get when we wear it, but yay we maybe get alot of lightning strikes for free. 


Also versus Freezing we could just use a fish or Thermal, and vs low Sanity we could also take a fish. 

I don't know i just don't find anything good in her build only King Buffs (not the hunger ones) and maybe Lunar mermses. 

man you're thinking way too much about this, she just likes it. she's not trying to optimize gameplay ahe just has the extra bonuses in springtime and "risks" getting struck by lightning.

one of her main reasons for liking wurt is being effectively immune to springtime. but you make a good point, i'll make sure to line our roads with lightning rods to help her experience.