Should Abigial be a boss assist follower?

[Mysterious box]

So I've been back and forth about how Wendy should be handled but there is one thing that kind of feels like a disconnect for me in this situation I don't think anyone can disagree that Abigial is a really powerful horde clearerer and general combat assist throughout most of the game. She's also useful in boss fights with advanced strategies but should that be intentionally encouraged by the game? It feels like stepping outside of her design space. I'm not against the idea if that's what people want but that begs the question of if this is okay for Wendy how should people feel about  characters like Wormwood, Warly, Walter and Wes whose downsides also have very heavy impacts on their boss encounters? Are we going to head down a path where character downsides are erased? Do we want that? Do we not? Either way I think this would probably be a good time to dicuss that hopefully in a somewhat peaceful manner.

[xhyom]

Gestalt's form is literally that, she'll become more resistant with the next changes anyway, she just needs an easier way to switch to this new form. She might die anyway in a longer fight, she's probably not the fastest in the game at killing bosses, but if they want to keep everything she already has, buff everything she already has and give her a function that never belonged to her and still think it's bad that she's not the best at it I think it's easier to download a mod or activate a cheat command.

[Mike23Ua]

Overtime, and over the years game design and direction changes.. sometimes that’s a good thing, sometimes it’s not. But talking strictly about the Dont Starve and DST franchise the “Hook” for Solo DS was for it to have these mostly weak characters with one weird perk that came with it it’s own set of unusual downsides.

Take Wickerbottom for Example, her downsides of not eating spoiling foods and not being able to sleep were pretty huge in Solo DS. But not just because you were playing as Wicker…

The franchise (back then) had a very different feel and goal to it, you were tasked with exploring multiple randomly generated worlds in a quest to beat Maxwells Adventure.

To me that was Don’t Starve, roam around a randomly generated world, finally locate maxwells doorway, begin your quest through 5 other randomly generated worlds.

That was what hooked me into the franchise I wasn’t ever able to fully become overly familiar with my world because it was always changing.

In DST However the focus shifted so far away from that that we are instead encouraged to keep the same world going forever for 1000,000,000+ Megabase worthy days..

And in the Process, learn exactly where everything spawns, wipe the map of most dangers, set up a huge home base where we can bring back supplies of armor, weapons gear etc that’s only actual purpose is to prep just enough stuff to go challenge one of the games 20+ Optional Raid Bosses.

Bosses that with the Sole Exceptions being CC & AFW, only serve to provide you with gear that makes staying alive in your extremely familiar 1 billion day world that much less difficult.

As far as character reworks and the skill trees go yes they heavily HEAVILY power crept all of the games old and outdated content, but.. perhaps that was Klei’s design intent all along?

Gone are the days of exploring unfamiliar worlds where the actual “challenge” of the game was not being able to reliably know what mob or resource spawns where.

Theyve even made huge sweeping changes to the core foundation that was DS, Resources that used to could if you’re not careful go completely extinct in your worlds… now have Regrowth or various different ways of obtaining (such as if all swamp reeds are burned away, Funny Monkey Portal has your replacement.)

Personally I don’t mind the more powerful characters and skill trees, but then again I see DST as being more of the permanently linger around in one game world forever turning it into you and your friends personally built up world, rather than even being the same franchise that solo DS was.

I also feel like Klei aren’t idiots… they can clearly see that after all the work they’ve been doing to make character reworks and powerful skill trees that the rest of the game world around them likely needs new creatures, weather and dangers to compensate.

the only issue with that is: We still have roughly half the character roster who still needs a powerful skill tree BEFORE we can start balancing the rest of the game with new mobs and dangers that balance out with that.

Otherwise: DST just becomes a game that continues to get easier and easier.

[purelove]

The current changes in the game reveal that it has shifted from a survival game to an RPG game that constantly challenges new monsters. As you mentioned, the characters that currently do not seem strong, I am almost certain that due to their small number of players, the creators believe that they need to be reinforced and will receive a powerful skill tree. I have always believed that the reason why Valkyrie's skill tree is weak is because her player base seems to be second only to Wendy, and this may be the reason why Wendy's skill tree is currently the weakest. She crudely tries to use increased intensity to force a large number of fans of Wendy's story and nostalgia to try other more powerful characters. These players may want to try fighting games, while for survival games, players always try the first character they like. Currently, it appears that, Strong characters have no flaws, while weak characters are always avoided from discussing their true weaknesses. Strong characters seem to receive positive feedback and surprises everywhere after entering the game, while weak characters are frightened by mistakes and unexpected situations in every place. Currently, I believe that Wendy and Valkyrie are both kept by players because of their beauty and initial companionship, and players think that this group of people is wrong because of their intensity stagnation. In fact, currently, the fewer players there are and the more restricted the characters are, the more likely they are to receive skill tree reinforcement far beyond imagination

Perhaps most beginner players who don't understand Wendy may not understand her true pain points, but when it comes to the need for these players to grow, do they have to give up their beloved characters? If you are afraid that Wendy will become a Wolfgang in both the early and late stages, it is a complete overestimation. In fact, Wendy has always been defeated in the later stages in order to pull Abigail to conquer the boss operation difficulty. As long as Abigail dies, he will become a Wes, and who knows what the future holds for Wes? Perhaps he will find an unexpected way to deal with the monster, but Wendy is already certain that the opportunity will slip away from her hand? If you are worried that Wendy will become a completely superior character, you can join me in advocating for Wendy to become a character with simple early stages, powerful later coping styles, but requiring more operations or other efforts to compensate. I scoff at the previous four little ghosts on the tombstone who could pass through monsters like Laipi, and scoff at the terrible way of tying Abigail to the urn at home and turning her into a slow 0.75 times 1050 blood monster. These situations have fully revealed the contradictions and loopholes in this skill tree.

[Mysterious box]

31 minutes ago, purelove said:

Currently, I believe that Wendy and Valkyrie are both kept by players because of their beauty and initial companionship, and players think that this group of people is wrong because of their intensity stagnation.

I disagree here the reason Wendy and Wigfrid have so much popularity is that most people remain eternally in the early game and they both require less effort in that area while overwhelming most threats the average player would encounter without too much issue especially in the case of Wendy where it's easy to get hooked on the convenience Abigial offers.

34 minutes ago, purelove said:

Perhaps most beginner players who don't understand Wendy may not understand her true pain points, but when it comes to the need for these players to grow, do they have to give up their beloved characters?

I feel like this implies the game is unplayable without Abigial but if that's truely the case then why does Wes still exist just fine? I do think Abigial should be buffed to deal with late game threats but I'm still iffy on if that should translate to late game bosses really.

 

36 minutes ago, purelove said:

Wendy has always been defeated in the later stages in order to pull Abigail to conquer the boss operation difficulty. As long as Abigail dies, he will become a Wes, and who knows what the future holds for Wes? Perhaps he will find an unexpected way to deal with the monster, but Wendy is already certain that the opportunity will slip away from her hand?

The thing is these skill trees would be the one to impact characters like Wes and Warly's futures as well that's why I'm so conflicted about it.

51 minutes ago, purelove said:

The current changes in the game reveal that it has shifted from a survival game to an RPG game

Do agree here though 

[Sapientis]

3 hours ago, Mysterious box said:

how should people feel about  characters like Wormwood, Warly, Walter and Wes whose downsides also have very heavy impacts on their boss encounters? Are we going to head down a path where character downsides are erased?

I don't get that tbh...

Wormwood's disadvantage of not being able to heal from food is pretty negligible, as he can amass other means of healing impossible for other characters and those healing sources don't spoil, so overpreparing never hurts him.

Warly loses only 10-20% on 2nd, 3rd food healing item and he can use salt to circumvent that, not even mentioning his other spices (thought they take time to get and stock). He can still heal with other healing options just fine, plus he is encouraged to bring different options of healing foods that exist in the game. In my opinion this downside doesn't matter that much, you just have to drop the Pierogi meta, but it's just in character.

Wurt wasn't mentioned and I think she might have it harder than Warly in early game, because there are less options for vegans early on. Guess she's forgotten because Merms obliterate everything once you set them up. Similarly to Warly her downside gets easily answered as the time goes on, plus she can heal with Blue caps or some cooked veggies just fine.

Walter is on the harder side, but that's why he has his Pinetree Pioneer Hat (though I remember I had to amass a lot sanity food while fighting DFLY with Marble Suits). This is quite meaningfull downside, but he has means to work around it with his Slingshot, Woby and PP Hat. To be honest his allergy to bees is even more meaningful and my run with Walter ended after trying to kill BQ for an hour. I kind of never liked Walter since that day.

Wes is a challange character, so that's his thing to have it harder.

 

Yet all of those downsides are thrown to the thrash if you say "just tame an Ornery Beefalo, craft a Battle Saddle and they're super strong" which is what I got from the Wendy being strong dispute.

For me Wendy's downside is more meaningful that the rest described here (other than Walter and Wes), and I think it could be addressed to some degree. Maybe not make Abigail immortal, but make her slightly more useful. Planar Entity Protection that Bernie got would be a step in the right direction (I guess it would actually satisfy me at this point).

[Mike23Ua]

I definitely don’t feel like Abigail should be helpful for ALL boss fights, but some of them?? Sure why not? The game continues to get more and more boss fights so obviously she needs more survivability against at least a few of those.

I feel the need to compare her strongly to Willow though (who Bernie WAS actually designed to help with boss fights whilst Abigail was not…) Those are Klei’s own words…. They intended Abby to be good at AoE (large crowds) and Bernie to be good at single target bosses.

But… as Someone who has extensive hours into playing as both Wendy AND Willow, Bernie is often times more harmful in a boss fight then he is actually doing Willow any good…

Two such cases that immediately come to mind are Klaus & Antlion Bernie causes the both of these bosses to spam more AoE Floor attacks then they otherwise would have if Willow had opted to just not bring Bernie.

This is getting confusing… isn’t Bernie in Klei’s own words Designed and Intended to be used in boss fights while Abigail is not?

Now then… moving on to Wendy, Bringing Abigail to this fight is a death sentence waiting to happen. She WILL kill the gem Deer and then your going to regret it.. but since Abby does not count as a entity, there will be no extra ground AoE attacks targeting her.

Conclusion: Klei needs to nerf Abigail’s ability to be good at boss fights that don’t involve swarms of mobs (what she’s designed to be best at dealing with) while at the same exact time- Buff the hell out of Bernie to be better at boss fights as was the design intent.

They can start by removing the additional AoEs that target Bernie but won’t Target Abigail.

[Mysterious box]

5 minutes ago, Sapientis said:

I don't get that tbh...

Wormwood's disadvantage of not being able to heal from food is pretty negligible, as he can amass other means of healing impossible for other characters and those healing sources don't spoil, so overpreparing never hurts him.

Warly loses only 10-20% on 2nd, 3rd food healing item and he can use salt to circumvent that, not even mentioning his other spices (thought they take time to get and stock). He can still heal with other healing options just fine, plus he is encouraged to bring different options of healing foods that exist in the game. In my opinion this downside doesn't matter that much, you just have to drop the Pierogi meta, but it's just in character.

Wurt wasn't mentioned and I think she might have it harder than Warly in early game, because there are less options for vegans early on. Guess she's forgotten because Merms obliterate everything once you set them up. Similarly to Warly her downside gets easily answered as the time goes on, plus she can heal with Blue caps or some cooked veggies just fine.

Walter is on the harder side, but that's why he has his Pinetree Pioneer Hat (though I remember I had to amass a lot sanity food while fighting DFLY with Marble Suits). This is quite meaningfull downside, but he has means to work around it with his Slingshot, Woby and PP Hat. To be honest his allergy to bees is even more meaningful and my run with Walter ended after trying to kill BQ for an hour. I kind of never liked Walter since that day.

Wes is a challange character, so that's his thing to have it harder.

 

Yet all of those downsides are thrown to the thrash if you say "just tame an Ornery Beefalo, craft a Battle Saddle and they're super strong" which is what I got from the Wendy being strong dispute.

For me Wendy's downside is more meaningful that the rest described here (other than Walter and Wes), and I think it could be addressed to some degree. Maybe not make Abigail immortal, but make her slightly more useful. Planar Entity Protection that Bernie got would be a step in the right direction (I guess it would actually satisfy me at this point).

How is Wendy's downside more meaningful than the rest? Let's assume beefalos didn't exist for a moment there's no big change to her gameplay if Abigail isn't around fights just take longer and even that gap becomes smaller post rift since the newer equipment and planar mechanics actually end up raising her damage output to be closer to Wilson's.

On the other hand we have Wormwood he has to go out of his way to find alternative methods of healing which in turn for most players changes the way they go about combat due to the need to be more careful.

Warly's penalty jumps all the way up to -75 percent effectiveness which is a huge drop in efficiency and he can't use non crockpot foods this is far more impactful than Wendy's downside even with salt which only improves healing by 25%

Wurt does not have it hard early on unless the player doesn't know where to find food carrots, berries, cactus, and kelp are very abundant on the surface early on.

As for Wes why would him being a called a challenge character in the past matter if characters like Wendy are stepping out of their role? If anything it'd make sense for him to expand into his own thing as well would it not? It's why once again I'm conflicted

As for Walter that's not a true work around if we were to put that in the terms of the route Wendy is heading it would be like making Woby completely protect Walter's stats like a beefalo. Currently Walter works within his restriction but Wendy is moving towards bypassing it.

Honestly you could even throw Wanda into the mix as it's not like you can be completely careless while playing with old age Wanda 

[Siren11]

11 minutes ago, Mike23Ua said:

but since Abby does not count as a entity, there will be no extra ground AoE attacks targeting her.

Klaus’s elemental attacks do target Abigail, and I think Antlion’s attacks do as well (though since I usually play multiplayer, there’s already a lot going on in that fight and it’s hard to tell).

Abigail can already be useful in most boss fights, so I don’t think there’s anything wrong with smoothing out Wendy’s learning curve as long as Abigail’s not too tanky (kiting for both of them is the fun part of boss fighting as Wendy anyways).

[arubaro]

She got a lot of tools to be more useful in boss fights. 

Abigail makes an important part of fighting as trivial as being afk while she kills enemies that a lot of players are afraid of like monkeys or hounds (i have seen many famous players depeding on beefalos and traps...)

Also she makes some of the most important fights a cake walk like BQ. I dont think it makes sense to give more facilities to make wendy strong against all of them

[WenericMember]

1 hour ago, Fitzee said:

I think Team Spirit I & II attempts to give Abigail the ability to kite, but the way they're implemented makes them impractical unless you're an expert at navigating menus and aiming rather quickly. 

I have made a suggestion of my own to make Abigail kiting more viable. 

That is the main thing I'm hoping they improve now.   A hotkey to open the UI & Making the animation cancellable on keyboard, among other potential changes for controller would fix that branch of the skill tree completely.