How come Wormwood is allowed to help other characters, but Winona after getting her catapaults locked isn't?

[Mysterious box]

1 minute ago, chaosmonkey said:

Houndius is inferior to catapults in every way except not needing a power source. Crap damage and no aoe. Not sure how brightshade bombs are even comparable here? The other two are defense structures and bombs are equipment. Bombs also destroy statues.

I mean pigmen are inferior versions of various follower based character abilities should they have the same range of functionality as a character who specializes in that style of play? Houndius is still a turret just a much lesser one. While brightshade bombs while not automatic replicate the lob of a catapult they're more or less degraded compromises even if they can't be used in the same way.

4 minutes ago, chaosmonkey said:

This is a bit reductive. The utility other characters give to the team is usually because they do something unique or is otherwise the best by a big margin. Wor mwood crushes growing a ton of food, wickerbottom resource farming is far far faster than any other character. Warly makes the best food. Tape on the other hand is like mildly better than a sewing kit, and the spot lights are pretty useless overall unless you're a base dweller (or winona and can take them with you).

And sure, Walter/Wendy don't really have any swap utility, but that's fine. Not every character needs to have swap utility. Winona adds something unique to the team if her catapults are shareable (even if without her skill tree buffs) and it's a shame to take that away as a lot of players enjoy that swap utility.

It's really not take wormwood for example his tents allow any player to sleep anywhere in the world recovering stats for hunger. While Wendy offers the best sanity structure in the game. 

Your saying because these abilities and Winona's remaining team perks aren't meta viable they essentially don't exist and offer nothing to a team how is that not reductive?

[chaosmonkey]

1 minute ago, Mysterious box said:

Your saying because these abilities and Winona's remaining team perks aren't meta viable they essentially don't exist and offer nothing to a team how is that not reductive?

I'm not saying they offer nothing to the team, I'm saying they are easily replaced. The other character examples are less easily replaced. If I want to farm 1,000 twigs, it's far far far faster as wickerbottom. That result is not easily replaced.

[Mysterious box]

1 minute ago, chaosmonkey said:

I'm not saying they offer nothing to the team, I'm saying they are easily replaced. The other character examples are less easily replaced. If I want to farm 1,000 twigs, it's far far far faster as wickerbottom. That result is not easily replaced.

I mean outside of advanced farms made by exploiting mechanics(which I'm not saying is bad before other people jump on me for saying this) what it offers in normal game is very replicatable. But as the advance farms go why shouldn't that be exclusive to the character or people who work together to accomplish these synergies it offers a good reason to play the character and she is still helpful to the team both short and long term.

[chaosmonkey]

1 minute ago, Mysterious box said:

But as the advance farms go why shouldn't that be exclusive to the character or people who work together to accomplish these synergies it offers a good reason to play the character and she is still helpful to the team both short and long term.

There's a big chunk of solo players in DST as well though. Some stuff like spider silk farm, of course I'll just swap to Winona to run the catapults (does this actually make her more of a swap character? just playing to push a button?). For other stuff like bird farm, I literally can't run that as a solo player. Need someone to read birds of the world while catapult does its thing. This doesn't require any of her fancy upgrades in the skill tree, it just requires that what we had before isn't taken away. Similarly, most efficient living log farm requires a varg fam setup with catapults and at least one friend. Now we'll need a 3rd just to push a button and stand there for 20 minutes. Winona's role has changed to "she builds the catapults" to "she stands there for 20 minutes so the catapults run while other characters play the game".

[Mysterious box]

4 minutes ago, chaosmonkey said:

There's a big chunk of solo players in DST as well though. Some stuff like spider silk farm, of course I'll just swap to Winona to run the catapults (does this actually make her more of a swap character? just playing to push a button?). For other stuff like bird farm, I literally can't run that as a solo player. Need someone to read birds of the world while catapult does its thing. This doesn't require any of her fancy upgrades in the skill tree, it just requires that what we had before isn't taken away. Similarly, most efficient living log farm requires a varg fam setup with catapults and at least one friend. Now we'll need a 3rd just to push a button and stand there for 20 minutes. Winona's role has changed to "she builds the catapults" to "she stands there for 20 minutes so the catapults run while other characters play the game".

I get it but at the end of the day this is a multiplayer game that being said it's not like there isn't a better way there's no doubt that gem trees are a intended alternative to varg farms as Klei clearly understood the over dependence on specific characters for solo players or even groups. Rather requiring these methods as the only way we should give feedback that we want more content like the gem trees but for other tedious grinds no?

[chaosmonkey]

6 minutes ago, Mysterious box said:

I get it but at the end of the day this is a multiplayer game that being said it's not like there isn't a better way there's no doubt that gem trees are a intended alternative to varg farms as Klei clearly understood the over dependence on specific characters for solo players or even groups. Rather requiring these methods as the only way we should give feedback that we want more content like the gem trees but for other tedious grinds no?

Varg farms are for moon rocks, hounds teeth, and living logs. Yeah you can collect gems there, but we don't really have a shortage of gems if clearing the ruins regularly. The new trees are more decoration than anything. Heck, even farming dragonfly is going to be more efficient for gems than the new trees. 

Azure and Jet feathers are basically impossible to mass farm as a solo player now. 

[Mike23Ua]

19 minutes ago, chaosmonkey said:

There's a big chunk of solo players in DST as well though. Some stuff like spider silk farm, of course I'll just swap to Winona to run the catapults (does this actually make her more of a swap character? just playing to push a button?). For other stuff like bird farm, I literally can't run that as a solo player. Need someone to read birds of the world while catapult does its thing. This doesn't require any of her fancy upgrades in the skill tree, it just requires that what we had before isn't taken away. Similarly, most efficient living log farm requires a varg fam setup with catapults and at least one friend. Now we'll need a 3rd just to push a button and stand there for 20 minutes. Winona's role has changed to "she builds the catapults" to "she stands there for 20 minutes so the catapults run while other characters play the game".

I’m actually offended by this post, Wickerbottom is one of my favorite characters to play as and she never needed Winona’s catapults to set up effective “bird farms” 

It may require the gathering of additional resources (or effort from you in this case) but just setting up a bunch of bird traps and then using birds of the world on them could’ve done that.

Or birds/sleepy time/tentacles.

Additionally Wickerbottom has her own new rework perks (like tentacle traps) that can run these farms without needing Nona Catapults.

The extra interaction between the two is so that a “group” of players could gather more resources faster and more efficiently but if your playing alone, all the resources are belonging to you anyway, so that needs to be balanced by slower production.

If you’re really really really strapped for silk just swap to Webber and shave down spider dens or switch to Wendy for Abby AoE, then just set up bird traps while spamming the birds book as Wickerbottom. (Or tentacles if you can prevent accidentally getting yourself killed)

Im all for the game requiring players to be a little more creative with how they have to do something beyond “Most effective farm I saw on Youtube”

[Mysterious box]

7 minutes ago, chaosmonkey said:

Varg farms are for moon rocks, hounds teeth, and living logs. Yeah you can collect gems there, but we don't really have a shortage of gems if clearing the ruins regularly. The new trees are more decoration than anything. Heck, even farming dragonfly is going to be more efficient for gems than the new trees. 

Azure and Jet feathers are basically impossible to mass farm as a solo player now. 

I get that but your missing the point why keep the solutions character exclusive we agree this is tedious and a bad experience but do you truely think leaving things as is would be better than fixing the tedium itself?

[chaosmonkey]

2 minutes ago, Mike23Ua said:

I’m actually offended by this post, Wickerbottom is one of my favorite characters to play as and she never needed Winona’s catapults to set up effective “bird farms” 

I didn't mean to offend you, sorry for that. I think we might not be talking about quite the same thing though.

2 minutes ago, Mike23Ua said:

It may require the gathering of additional resources (or effort from you in this case) but just setting up a bunch of bird traps and then using birds of the world on the could’ve done that.

It's not about collecting a bunch of birds, it's about collecting tons of _bird feathers_. 

2 minutes ago, Mike23Ua said:

Additionally Wickerbottom has her own new rework perks (like tentacle traps) that can run these farms without needing Nona Catapults.

Not a replacement in this case.

2 minutes ago, Mike23Ua said:

The extra interaction between the two is so that a “group” of players could gather more resources faster and more efficiently but if your playing alone, all the resources are belonging to you anyway, so that needs to be balanced by slower production.

Uh, no it doesn't? Part of the beauty of DST is these synergistic interactions that, if you invest a bunch of resources into (time to configure the farm, raw resources themselves, testing, and iteration) that you get an outsized production. We have stuff like cave stalker farm for logs, wicker for lots of basic resources, etc.

These systems support megabasers in the late game. They aren't early game farms. Early game if I need feathers, I'll sit there with an ice staff on the proper turf. Late late game we need bulk production.

2 minutes ago, Mike23Ua said:

Im all for the game requiring players to be a little more creative with how they have to do something beyond “Most effective farm I saw on Youtube”

Now it's my turn to be offended. Some of us invest a lot of time in figuring this stuff out--playing with mechanics and seeing what's possible. We are being creative, and now mechanics are being removed.

1 minute ago, Mysterious box said:

I get that but your missing the point why keep the solutions character exclusive we agree this is tedious and a bad experience but do you truely think leaving things as is would be better than fixing the tedium itself?

I actually think the catapults being shareable is a beautiful feature for the game that allows us to address a lot of the tedium in late game.

[Master_NiX]

I just love this discussion.

Defending "no need to swap" to use catapults while bringing situations where you would swap to other characters.

Edit: oh wow, there are multiple topics like this one, man I was away for quite a bit.

[Mysterious box]

8 minutes ago, chaosmonkey said:

actually think the catapults being shareable is a beautiful feature for the game that allows us to address a lot of the tedium in late game.

Agree to disagree I guess I feel like it's reductive to the character herself.

[chaosmonkey]

Just now, Mysterious box said:

Agree to disagree I guess I feel like it's reductive to the character herself.

Certainly seems to be one of those things.

One thing on my mind, it seems like the issue prior to Winona's skill tree was that there was no incentive/nothing extra to actually play her. With the skill tree, she can have stronger catapults when she uses them, lots of new machines like the teleports/winbot, movable catapults for defense on the go. It seems like that issue "nothing special about playing her" has been addressed. 

[Mike23Ua]

You get the bird feathers by putting in the extra effort of murderalizing (murdering) the birds after they’ve been captured sure it’s not as cheap & effortless as birds of the world and a bunch of Winona Catapults, but it shouldn’t have been in the first place.

When all the resources are belong to you, there’s no need to increase production cause there’s no group to share with.

This May slow down your gameplay, true… but it doesn’t completely “Prevent” it, unless you were only relying on that one particular way of doing things.

[chaosmonkey]

3 minutes ago, Mike23Ua said:

You get the bird feathers by putting in the extra effort of murderalizing (murdering) the birds after they’ve been captured sure it’s not as cheap & effortless as birds of the world and a bunch of Winona Catapults, but it shouldn’t have been in the first place.

When all the resources are belong to you, there’s no need to increase production cause there’s no group to share with.

This May slow down your gameplay, true… but it doesn’t completely “Prevent” it, unless you were only relying on that one particular way of doing things.

If you went through feathers as quickly as I did, I imagine your perspective would change. Anyway, we have different opinions on this one so no need to debate further.

[Mysterious box]

12 minutes ago, chaosmonkey said:

Certainly seems to be one of those things.

One thing on my mind, it seems like the issue prior to Winona's skill tree was that there was no incentive/nothing extra to actually play her. With the skill tree, she can have stronger catapults when she uses them, lots of new machines like the teleports/winbot, movable catapults for defense on the go. It seems like that issue "nothing special about playing her" has been addressed. 

I don't agree so much of her tree is dedicated to her catapults that reverting it would feel like that was it's entire purpose to use Willow as a example it would be like everyone being able to use big Bernie but not his skill tree effects It would feel bad basically.

[chaosmonkey]

Just now, Mysterious box said:

I don't agree so much of her tree is dedicated to her catapults that reverting it would feel like that was it's entire purpose to use Willow as a example it would be like everyone being able to use big Bernie but not his skill tree effects It would feel bad basically.

Well, right now Winona is kind of a switch herself. Her tree powers are applied at build time rather than at use time. This incentivizes Winonas to set up their farms and respec away from catapults because they retain all that power. By making powers apply based on who activates them and with what skill tree configuration, the rest of the survivors could get just the basic version of catapults (which as I understand is worse than before this patch), but Winona would get the full power of them (and only if still specced into catapults).

[Mysterious box]

17 minutes ago, chaosmonkey said:

Well, right now Winona is kind of a switch herself. Her tree powers are applied at build time rather than at use time. This incentivizes Winonas to set up their farms and respec away from catapults because they retain all that power. By making powers apply based on who activates them and with what skill tree configuration, the rest of the survivors could get just the basic version of catapults (which as I understand is worse than before this patch), but Winona would get the full power of them (and only if still specced into catapults).

This is true of all skill trees at this point even then why should it be a issue that a character is synergizing with herself? It's different giving up the entirety of your primary ability to be added to someone's skill set