The truth about "swap characters"

[JustExo]

There has been tons of talk in regards to "swap characters" recently, so I feel like its important to understand what it means for a character to be considered a swap character and what they'd need to stop being seen as one. 

 

Characters with universally applicable tools are not all swap characters. Nobody looks at a character like Willow who can make and share her lighter and bernie as a swap character just because she has those things that anybody else can use. The reality is that she has all these items, but also perks that are intrinsic to her: her increase sanity gain from heat, immunity to fire, and the ability to make bernie turn into BERNIE! Which is all specific to her. 

Characters like Warly and Winona are different from Willow in this regard, because while they do have structures/items that other characters can use, they don't have any standout perks that set them apart, whether its using their items themselves, or just in their day to day gameplay loop. 

The way to fix Warly and Winona's issue of being a swap character is to simply give them more perks that are inherent to them. Willow's skill tree took this approach and did wonders for the character, where now she has more perks and features intrinsic to her in the form of Bernie buffs, and her embers which can be used to cast fire based spells, which is fitting for the pyromaniac character. 

Winona's skill tree, and Warly's eventual skill tree can, and should take a similar approach that Willow's had, in which they double down on introducing perks that are intrinsic to their characters, and help them in their day to day gameplay loop.

Rather than limiting functionality in the characters kit, expanding on how they use those tools differently and giving the characters more rather than limiting the usage of already existing items and structures, is an infinitely better approach and something that I believe to be more broadly appealing while still solving the issue of characters being seen as swap characrers.

[Sir Noel]

I think people focused too much on Winona being a "swap character" when we should be talking about how the skill tree really only affected her machines, and most skills are for the catapults. So when Klei makes catapults specific to her its going to take the discussion away from her skill tree and make it about how no one can use catapults anymore. IMO this is just a bandaid fix to a larger issue with the character.

I will say that even if Winona had other perks for herself, people who want to swap with her would probably continue using her for that purpose, but that's not really a big deal. The mechanic is meant for you to swap characters to get their perks and that is what it does.

[dst_lover]

I remember before the wigfrid rework some people swap to wigfrid and make a lot of her helmet and they were calling her  a swap character for that but after her rework and skill tree nobody call her a swap character for her other skills that people use her for

[abrocator]

5 hours ago, dst_lover said:

I remember before the wigfrid rework some people swap to wigfrid and make a lot of her helmet and they were calling her  a swap character for that but after her rework and skill tree nobody call her a swap character for her other skills that people use her for

I’ve used Wigfrid as a swap character for her helmets because they’re cheaper than football helmets. (Before Nightmare Werepig.) I don’t really think Wigfrid has ever been a swap character. Like has been said: a character that can be used as a swap character is not a swap character if they get played for their own sake. The core Wigfrid is about fighting, not about crafting. Like Woodie really (his helmets were really popular in his skilltree beta, although of course his helmets are very early game).

Warly is the closest to being a swap character who also really isn’t. Because even though he has great swap character perks, he has skills that make him fun for certain people.

[CyberSkink]

Please keep in mind that it’s still early in the beta, things have changed before. I understand that this is your main, but please try to give Klei some credit where it is due. After all, they are trying their best.

[WhackE]

1 hour ago, JustExo said:

The way to fix Warly and Winona's issue of being a swap character is to simply give them more perks that are inherent to them. Willow's skill tree took this approach and did wonders for the character, where now she has more perks and features intrinsic to her in the form of Bernie buffs, and her embers which can be used to cast fire based spells, which is fitting for the pyromaniac character. 

I agree completely with this post, and this is the best way possible to "remove" swap characters.

[chaosmonkey]

1 hour ago, JustExo said:

Rather than limiting functionality in the characters kit, expanding on how they use those tools differently and giving the characters more rather than limiting the usage of already existing items and structures, is an infinitely better approach and something that I believe to be more broadly appealing while still solving the issue of characters being seen as swap characrers.

Well said. Skill trees are a great opportunity to give more incentive to play that character. Carrot > Stick.

I was chatting yesterday with a few people about the concept of swap characters and whether it's bad. My takeaway was that it's actually positive for the game since you're able to leverage abilities/traits of one character when you're playing others. Combining mechanics from different characters creates more, interesting game loops. It increases the number of characters you're incentivized to play.

Warly is a great example of this. If only Warly could eat his food buffs, I would *never* play Warly. I find his mechanic around not eating the same food repeatedly to be annoying and tedious. As it is today, I enjoy my time on Warly getting to cook a bunch of special dishes and then leverage those on the characters I do enjoy playing. Restricting Warly's food to him wouldn't make me play Warly more, it would just take away from the way I and others enjoy playing today.

 

[JustExo]

48 minutes ago, CyberSkink said:

Please keep in mind that it’s still early in the beta, things have changed before. I understand that this is your main, but please try to give Klei some credit where it is due. After all, they are trying their best.

Exactly why I think this should be brought up.

I sure hope they change things taking this approach into account

[Faintly Macabre]

2 hours ago, JustExo said:

There has been tons of talk in regards to "swap characters" recently, so I feel like its important to understand what it means for a character to be considered a swap character and what they'd need to stop being seen as one. [...] Nobody looks at a character like Willow who can make and share her lighter and bernie as a swap character just because she has those things that anybody else can use. [...] The way to fix Warly and Winona's issue of being a swap character is to simply give them more perks that are inherent to them. Willow's skill tree took this approach and did wonders for the character, where now she has more perks and features intrinsic to her in the form of Bernie buffs, and her embers which can be used to cast fire based spells, which is fitting for the pyromaniac character. 

As someone whose mind isn't really made up on this whole affair, I feel like I should let you know that this is not going to be convincing to anybody. The reason Willow wasn't considered a "swap character" isn't because she didn't have any compelling reasons to stick around after she crafted a bunch of lighters and Bernies. It's because few people would ever even consider swapping to/from her for the sake of those things in the first place. A torch with 8x the normal life and a shadow creature tank are neat and all, but are nowhere near on the level of potentially tripling your own melee effectiveness or allowing you to /dance while things around you die. The absurdity of this comparison is only going to detract from your actual points' merits.

[GreenBowers]

15 minutes ago, Faintly Macabre said:

As someone whose mind isn't really made up on this whole affair, I feel like I should let you know that this is not going to be convincing to anybody. The reason Willow wasn't considered a "swap character" isn't because she didn't have any compelling reasons to stick around after she crafted a bunch of lighters and Bernies. It's because few people would ever even consider swapping to/from her for the sake of those things in the first place. A torch with 8x the normal life and a shadow creature tank are neat and all, but are nowhere near on the level of potentially tripling your own melee effectiveness or allowing you to /dance while things around you die. The absurdity of this comparison is only going to detract from your actual points' merits.

Its convincing to me, and youre being purposefully pedantic about their point.

[Faintly Macabre]

2 minutes ago, GreenBowers said:

Its convincing to me, and youre being purposefully pedantic about their point.

I don't believe that that actually convinced you of anything, and I don't think pointing out the absurdity of comparing Willow's utility to Warly or Winona's in a topic titled "The Truth About Swap Characters" is being pedantic. This comparison takes up like 1/4 of the entire post and is just patently silly.

[GreenBowers]

Agree to disagree. 

[Uedo]

I think as long as you tend to prefer to play certain characters and prefer to continue to play as them, on a more long term basis, some characters will always be swap characters.

Someone mentioned Wig not being one after her rework, If I felt a little lazy i'd swap to her. To kill Dfly and then i'd switch back.
She's defo a swap character to me, moreso with her shield now.

Likewise, if they don't allow catapults to work outside of Winona in the future, I could defo see myself switching for some early BQ and then switching back.

Probably why its such a contentious issue on the forums, I'm never gonna swap into Warly despite most viewing him as a swap character - I just don't wanna play him :P 

Imo it's good some characters are swap characters, otherwise i'd literally never play them

[Mysterious box]

4 hours ago, JustExo said:

Characters with universally applicable tools are not all swap characters. Nobody looks at a character like Willow who can make and share her lighter and bernie as a swap character just because she has those things that anybody else can use. The reality is that she has all these items, but also perks that are intrinsic to her: her increase sanity gain from heat, immunity to fire, and the ability to make bernie turn into BERNIE! Which is all specific to her. 

This comparsion a flawed though first how useful abilities are hold a lot of weight when it comes down to if people will swap to a character for their item nothing Willow offers is desired enough to swap to her but even that's not the main point.

In the case of Winona's catapults the comparsion of her catapult to small Bernie isn't a fair comparison since it doesn't work on the same level as Winona's base catapults pre skill tree a more accurate representation is if everyone could use big Bernie! but they couldn't make use of Bernie's skill tree upgrades and somehow I really doubt Willow players would be okay with that even with the benefits her skill tree offers her.

Adding additional abilities to Winona would be preferred as I was kinda disappointed with the fact we didn't get too many new inventions which is what I personally was hoping for out of this skill tree. But the main thing I feel Klei did with this change is double down on the idea that catapults are Winona's primary ability which does make more sense to personalize it if that is the case. If this call was a good choice or not is up to each person's interpretation.

That being said it's not as though Klei is saying she can't contribute to the team as she does still share some other crafts that carry over between characters.

4 hours ago, JustExo said:

whether its using their items themselves, or just in their day to day gameplay loop. 

I think this was their intention with Winbot and the mobile crafts as you can techincally use all these in your day to day now.

[HowlVoid]

As someone who only plays Wormwood I'm wondering if people used her catapults as a crutch? There was a person even claiming they can't fend off hounds without them.

I don't see a big deal in making them a core of her kit and making them Winona exclusive. If you look at catapults as "followers" is it any different than Wurt's merms? 

It maybe be sad to say but the catapults ARE Winona. With such a powerful item it kinda makes sense that the character themselves would be on the weaker side (I'm not necessarily saying the character should be bland though). 

If anyone could use her catapults then you basically have a character with Winona's power plus their own.

This makes the choice of leaving Winona as she is now or weakening her catapults and strengthening her. Are weaker catapults something the community would be ok with? 

[chaosmonkey]

12 minutes ago, HowlVoid said:

This makes the choice of leaving Winona as she is now or weakening her catapults and strengthening her. Are weaker catapults something the community would be ok with? 

I think the common consensus among proponents for widely usable catapults is that everyone else should get access to just the basic catapult functionality, and winona activating them with the remote would apply all the buffs from the skill tree and access the strong version of catapults. So, yes, definitely ok with that. As I understand, the base catapult is worse than it was from before the patch, so it's just a matter of managing their power based on who activates them (and with what skills if winona).

[HowlVoid]

32 minutes ago, chaosmonkey said:

I think the common consensus among proponents for widely usable catapults is that everyone else should get access to just the basic catapult functionality, and winona activating them with the remote would apply all the buffs from the skill tree and access the strong version of catapults. So, yes, definitely ok with that. As I understand, the base catapult is worse than it was from before the patch, so it's just a matter of managing their power based on who activates them (and with what skills if winona).

I'm not sure how weak they are now but their damage needs to be very low to be supplementary to other characters.

50% reduction and do around 20~ dmg. For comparison, wormwood's husk does 22.6ish dmg can be worn by anyone but don't all trigger at once. His traps do 40 in AOE but have durability. 

My guess is:

Their dmg will have to be greatly reduced, as I said.

They'll need durability. (Not an option as it will require more art)

Or they'll need to deplete fuel twice as fast (similar to Maxwell's increased sanity cost).

Edit: bramble husk does 22.6 dmg.

[chaosmonkey]

1 minute ago, HowlVoid said:

I'm not sure how weak they are now but their damage needs to be very low to be supplementary to other characters.

50% reduction and do around 20~ dmg. For comparison, wormwood's husk does 26ish dmg can be worn by anyone but don't all trigger at once. His traps do 40 in AOE but have durability. 

My guess is:

Their dmg will have to be greatly reduced, as I said.

They'll need durability.

Or they'll need to deplete fuel twice as fast (similar to Maxwell's increased sanity cost).

this is all fine IMO. Make it a worse experience for others, and make it great for Winona. 

[Maxil20]

1 minute ago, HowlVoid said:

I'm not sure how weak they are now but their damage needs to be very low to be supplementary to other characters.

I would be down for going down to axe damage (27.2). This would be low enough to keep it moreso for very weak mobs while also not being ineffective enough to make it entirely unusable for said purpose. The main thing I rely on them for is their AOE aspect, not how fast it can help support you against something like a boss or the like.

[HowlVoid]

24 minutes ago, Maxil20 said:

I would be down for going down to axe damage (27.2). This would be low enough to keep it moreso for very weak mobs while also not being ineffective enough to make it entirely unusable for said purpose. The main thing I rely on them for is their AOE aspect, not how fast it can help support you against something like a boss or the like.

That's probably too high as 1) The damage is AOE, as you noted. 2) people will build more than 1.

For comparison Wormwood's brambleshade armor's AOE effect does just about that much (and requires purebrilliance/husks, albeit 5 of that dmg is planar). It should probably be closer to normal husk damage.

The difference for farming spiders is with 27.2 dmg is you need 4 catapults hits.

With 22.6dmg (bramble husk dmg) you need 5

With grumble bees

27.2dmg require 7 catapults

22.6 dmg require 8 which is also the max you can place around one generator.

I think having to build 8 (the max) catapults is fair given it's a one time investment on a boss spawn that doesn't move.

On that note, the whole "one time cost" thing bothers me, and is the whole reason why Winona can be "taken advantage of" as a character. But maybe that's another conversation. 

Catapults and husks have upkeep costs (gems/nitre/L.logs/stingers).

[cybers2001]

2 hours ago, Uedo said:

I think as long as you tend to prefer to play certain characters and prefer to continue to play as them, on a more long term basis, some characters will always be swap characters.

Someone mentioned Wig not being one after her rework, If I felt a little lazy i'd swap to her. To kill Dfly and then i'd switch back.
She's defo a swap character to me, moreso with her shield now.

Likewise, if they don't allow catapults to work outside of Winona in the future, I could defo see myself switching for some early BQ and then switching back.

Probably why its such a contentious issue on the forums, I'm never gonna swap into Warly despite most viewing him as a swap character - I just don't wanna play him :P 

Imo it's good some characters are swap characters, otherwise i'd literally never play them

Funny enough to say, as much as I consider Wolfgang to be my main, he's really more of a "swap" character for me once a world gets past 300 days or so. In my solo world, I literally only use Wolfgang to clear the ruins during the summer.

So for me, in order for Winona to compete, I'd have to be convinced that I'm more productive at fighting things with catapults than as Wolfgang with voltgoat jelly, otherwise she's just a less elegant alternative for combat use-cases.

[BeastNleashed]

at least you could swap to her for staff but why would anyone swap to like Wurt, Walter

[Mike23Ua]

21 hours ago, HowlVoid said:

As someone who only plays Wormwood I'm wondering if people used her catapults as a crutch? There was a person even claiming they can't fend off hounds without them.

I don't see a big deal in making them a core of her kit and making them Winona exclusive. If you look at catapults as "followers" is it any different than Wurt's merms? 

It maybe be sad to say but the catapults ARE Winona. With such a powerful item it kinda makes sense that the character themselves would be on the weaker side (I'm not necessarily saying the character should be bland though). 

If anyone could use her catapults then you basically have a character with Winona's power plus their own.

This makes the choice of leaving Winona as she is now or weakening her catapults and strengthening her. Are weaker catapults something the community would be ok with? 

Winona can now pick up and move her structures, so.. perhaps the best nerf to both people using her catapults (as well as to catapults that have to be given skill tree investment into them) is to limit how many catapults she can build and place at any given time?

Kind of like how you can only place down so many canisters of toxin as Caustic in Apex Legends before a previous can will be replaced by the next one you place down? 

That could work… and if someone wanted huge catapult farms they’d have to cheat this system by having several different players pick Winona and build their own limit of catapults.

But all of that sounds very complex and too complicated and it’s probably just better to limit them to being a Winona exclusive.

I personally don’t think it’s fair for Winona players to have to deal with her Stats (hunger, sanity drain, total health) when WX78 can walk around with Night Vision, faster movement speed or 600 Hp AND STILL USE HER CATAPULTS.

Im probably gonna get a lot of flack for this, but the change was justified.

[chaosmonkey]

The change isn't justified IMO. Plenty of other characters have swap utility, but now Winona has none.

[Mike23Ua]

3 minutes ago, chaosmonkey said:

The change isn't justified IMO. Plenty of other characters have swap utility, but now Winona has none.

Have those plenty of other characters been reworked/given skill trees yet?

Winonas swap utility is in her trusty duct tape and the new heat giving spotlights.

But I’d love to know who the plenty of characters you’re speaking of actually are.