Why is Wendy so popular in China?

[Peasant]

16 minutes ago, loopuleasa said:

Blue, can you please link your post where you discussed this topic

Is this effect particular to China? Do the arguments apply to all Wendy players or only Chinese?

Do you want this to be coined as "The Wendy Effect"?

Mind you, the last link to a video is rather, shall we say, "sharp" in criticizing the skilltree, and is labelled out by the uploader herself at the begining.

As for whether the arguments apply to all or only to the Chinese, well I assume would be the former, for people in forum did put a poll and only 10% thought that they're satistied with the current skilltree.

As for "The Wendy Effect", it may not be that precise, for I believe that what caused this phenomenon is not Wendy herself, but the joint effect of the rather high popularity the character got and the unsatisfying skilltree klei had designed.

[loopuleasa]

6 minutes ago, NINA1917 said:

Wendy is not a woman in the traditional sense. The core of her character's story is not obsession and surrender, but sadness.
She was beautiful, but beauty was only part of the fire. The real flame is called tragedy. It can easily burn people's hearts, just like tears always make people worry.
Most of Wendy's players in China are women, and some feminine men .

You don't need to be a feminine man to feel emotions.

You just need to be a man that feels.

[Utopia353]

1 hour ago, cropo said:

They're not going to answer truthfully.:

Wendy is pale-skinned, traditionally feminine, is very "flowery" in most of her skins and her kit. Meanwhile, other female characters, like Wigfrid, have a more masculine and jaw-defining apearance to them, bigger lips, louder and more grating instruments for their speech.

Willow is an obnoxious gremlin, and has elements of Japanese inspirations in her. 

Wurt is a literal gremlin

Wickerbottom is old and snooty in appearance.

Wanda is old and not pale-skinned.

All the other characters are male.

Like, it's hard to answer this question with an honest answer because regardless of their talk of skill trees and all that a large factor is the things I listed above.

Also I'd like to add that people are going to bring up Wendy's age, and due to the language barrier and the fact that all characters look very similar in age aside from a few obvious standouts that's not immediately apparent. Wilson, Willow, and Wendy all look to be of similar ages and yet all 3 of them are around 10 years apart in age. 

 

Here’s the translation of your text into a more polished version for an English-speaking audience:

---

In China, when people talk about "weird fetishes," it's often meant as a joke. Concepts like pedophilia are virtually unheard of or only rarely discussed in everyday life. I can only assume that you and the people around you may live in an environment where such issues are more prominent, which might explain why you associate so many things with these "fetishes."

Of course, I don’t deny human desires and greed, nor do I deny that Chinese aesthetics sometimes lean toward "youthful" appearances. However, this so-called preference for youthfulness typically applies to people around the age of 18 or older, when desire might actually come into play. Regarding Wendy, I believe that due to language barriers, many Chinese players are unaware of her precise canonical age. Personally, if I hadn’t come across arguments on this forum, I wouldn’t have known her supposed age either. In general, though, we rarely discuss topics like racism or deviant fetishes in the way you describe.

If you look at platforms like Bilibili.com, where Don’t Starve content is discussed, most comments focus on gameplay mechanics, such as how to adjust the skill tree. Based on what I’ve seen and my own perspective, Wendy’s skill tree could be redesigned with two distinct branches: one centered on Grave Ghosts and the other on Flower Elixirs. For the final skills, such as Lunar Grace or Dark Veil, improvements should focus on boosting Abigail’s abilities—either enhancing her damage, providing damage reduction, or introducing a mechanic for Abigail's revival. This doesn’t necessarily mean bringing Abigail back as a "human helper" but rather finding new ways to empower her ghostly form to assist players effectively.

[Peasant]

9 minutes ago, Mysterious box said:

No I'm saying assuming the characters wouldn't have reached similar conclusions to the players after many deaths and failures feels unlikely.

I kinda doubt that...players who use wormwood would still need to chop down trees, which wormwood seems wouldn't like to do...If he had drawn a conclusion that he needs to chop down trees to survive, he wouldn't got the sanity loss when doing so.

[NINA1917]

8 minutes ago, loopuleasa said:

You don't need to be a feminine man to feel emotions.

You just need to be a man that feels.

Thank you, I know. Just the language of today, the soil in which it grows is the culture of the past, and it will always be influenced by it when it is used.

[Blue Tangerine]

39 minutes ago, cropo said:

I did not say that, and was actually defending you guys from that accusation.

 

 

It was mostly the English speaking players who started trying to bring up Wendy's actual gameplay utility, whereas a lot of the people with low-post counts, including you, immediately went straight to her beauty as the first thing.

 

Fair enough, I'll take your word on that.

OK, maybe I confused you with this Dreamers250.

[Lee Sy]

Give me a reason that you don't like Wendy, who wouldn't like a pretty little girl? Besides out-looking, Wendy's background story attracts me at least, I also like Warly's story, it's touching as well. When it comes to the game, Wendy is popular around beginners, who is easier to survive in early stage. But after killing cc/fw, it turned, Wendy as well as Abi became fragile in most situations. We long for some influential new mechanism to fix it as Willow, but what came instead were a series of completely useless skill, especially the alliance skills and the petal transformation.

给我一个不喜欢温蒂的理由，谁会讨厌一个漂亮的小姑娘呢？除了外貌，温蒂的背景故事至少吸引了我，我也同样喜欢沃利的故事，他们都很感人。回到游戏里，温蒂在新玩家里很受欢迎，她在前期更容易生存。但当击杀天体英雄或者织影者后呢，温蒂和阿比在很多场景下变得很脆弱。我们期待技能树会引入一些新机制来完善这点，像薇洛那样，但等来的确实一系列完全没用的技能，尤其是阵营技能和花瓣转化。

[Mysterious box]

9 minutes ago, YXukun said:

I kinda doubt that...players who use wormwood would still need to chop down trees, which wormwood seems wouldn't like to do...If he had drawn a conclusion that he needs to chop down trees to survive, he wouldn't got the sanity loss when doing so.

The sanity loss is because he knows he needs to do this to survive if he didn't have light he'd canonically never last a day.

[Peasant]

39 minutes ago, loopuleasa said:

Blue, can you please link your post where you discussed this topic

Is this effect particular to China? Do the arguments apply to all Wendy players or only Chinese?

Do you want this to be coined as "The Wendy Effect"?

And the first post is a poll of "Are you satisfied with Wendy's skilltree", it is posted due to that one certain fellow claims that those who aren't satisfied are "not the majority" and thus cannot represent all of chinese players. The language it used could be rather aggrasive, for the poster was infuriated by that certain fellow.

[cropo]

The post-rifts content in general seems to reflect that the survivors have become more adept in their environment. During ANR the bosses were massive and scary and overwhelming, now that the survivors know what they're doing the bosses have tended to be mano-a-mano and everything is just moving to another phase. Sort of like ANR was a departure from the original phase of Don't Starve.

[NINA1917]

16 minutes ago, loopuleasa said:

You don't need to be a feminine man to feel emotions.

You just need to be a man that feels.

After feeling the sadness of Wendy's story, many male players still prefer to play Wolfgang. This is why I marked it specifically.

[Cassielu]

That's a big question, and I don't think I or anyone else can answer it just by as a Chinese.

It's not Wendy's perk that's popular, it's her character. This has something to do with hole East Asia's preference for younger female characters compared to the West. You can find similar tendencies in Japanese anime or Korean mmo game, and the rationale behind this would take several economic and cultural academic papers to explain.

7 hours ago, HowlVoid said:

Now, more interestingly you'll find a lot of them are displeased with being able to move the graves. Thats because messing with the dead is essentially "disgusting" and morally reprehensible behavior in their culture (And i do apologize if that is incorrect).

I'm pretty sure that's hardly the case.

More because graves were never part of Wendy's core gameplay. So adding them to the skill tree is considered as developers perfunctory, like Wolfgang's whistle.

[Echsrick]

young blonde girl, and i guess she looks the most like one of those "anime characters" from that game ghensin impact wich...i dont know...i never liked these kinds of character designs they look...well you know

[baishu]

I am a Chinese and I communicate with a translator.
In China, the first character to be played by many players is Wendy,So Wendy is like a partner who grew up with us，Even if we play other characters now, we will still like her and remember the time we spent with her.I saw the reply below this post and noticed that a lot of people were talking about gravedigging in our culture.But according to my personal opinion,I think everyone is angry because her skills are too weak.Some people may think that this is too utilitarian,But look at how strong the skills of the other characters have become now!That's the problem: why?Why can someone else be strong and she has to be so weak?It's not that we can't accept her skills, but we can't accept that she can't enjoy the same treatment even though she is the same character in the game.In fact, there has been more than one discussion about the treatment of characters in China, but it is not as scary as this time, and I think the reason why this time is so scary is because Wendy's skills are so weird, after all, anyone who sees the purification petals and the shroud before the change will question the level of the designer.

（I was afraid of ambiguity in the translation, so I left my original text）我是中国人，我用翻译交流。
在中国很多玩家首先扮演的角色就是温蒂，所以温蒂就像是跟我们一起长大的伙伴，即使我们现在演其他角色，我们还是会喜欢她，记得和她一起度过的时光。我看到这篇文章下面的回复，注意到很多人都在谈论我们文化中的掘墓。但根据我个人的看法，我觉得大家都生气是因为她的技能太弱了。可能有人会觉得这太功利了，但看看现在其他角色的技能都变得有多强了！这就是问题所在：为什么？为什么别人可以很强，而她必须这么弱？并不是我们不能接受她的技能，而是我们不能接受她不能享受同样的待遇，他们甚至是同一个游戏的角色。其实国内关于人物待遇的讨论不止一次，但并没有这次那么可怕，我觉得这次之所以这么可怕，是因为温蒂的技术实在是太奇葩了，毕竟谁看到改前的净化花瓣和裹尸布，都会质疑设计师的水平。

[Evelo]

I can only speak for myself, before Wormwood existed I was a Wendy main because she is severely depressed and her quotes were comforting to me as someone who has frequent suicidal thoughts.

(Before anyone posts, I am on medication now and the thoughts went from multiple times per day to once or twice a month. Over all I am much better now)

[AliceMagtron]

8 hours ago, WenericMember said:

It's not out of character for Wendy because they made sure to give Abigail the primary agency in the creation of the shroud. Maybe that aspect isn't present in the chinese localization though? Not sure how that works.

i dont think there is other language choice except english in beta contents

22 minutes ago, Fitzee said:

Then don't choose it, and it will never be part of her "core gameplay". 

but except this part, sadly there isnt enough interesting nor useful skills to pick.

[hyoton123]

She’s free and easy to play and a humanoid so people are going to know about her, but to be honest I think this is a bunch of brigading, like with some mobile games recently.

[Lee Sy]

10 hours ago, Fitzee said:

Then don't choose it, and it will never be part of her "core gameplay". 

Sadly, Wendy doesn't have other choices. To expand potion effect from 8 minutes to 16 minutes or get a 15% speed reduction, to transform petals while there're more convenient ways to obtain more, or lose Abi's AOE demage?

但温蒂还有其他选择吗？把八分钟的药水效果增长到十六分钟？获得一个15%的减速效果？明明有更方便高效的获取方法却选择消耗材料去转换花瓣？还是要选择失去阿比盖尔的范围伤害呢？

[RexySeven]

12 hours ago, Echsrick said:

young blonde girl, and i guess she looks the most like one of those "anime characters" from that game ghensin impact wich...i dont know...i never liked these kinds of character designs they look...well you know

"well yeah, but akchually they are bazillion years old god of space and time in the lore and just conveniently decide to look like a cute ten years old female child in-game."

[Lee lol]

有没有可能，这次发帖的中国玩家这么多是因为和其他人的技能树相比温蒂技能树实在太烂了？

作为一名中国玩家，我确实非常喜欢温蒂这个角色，我是新手的时候用的第一个角色就是温蒂，温蒂陪着我从新手到一名熟练的饥荒玩家，从技能树之前的版本到现在。温蒂美丽，善良，爱自己的姐姐，她忧郁和略带厌世的气质吸引着我。她的许多台词充满诗意而富有哲理，让这个角色变得更丰富，同时也让玩家心疼这个失去亲人的小女孩。在位面伤害之前的版本，温蒂或许不是最强的，但也属于很强的角色之一，她打龙蝇，蜂后，帝王蟹等boss都有优势，aoe伤害可以让玩家生活得很舒服。但月后一切都改变了。

玩家生气的点在于温蒂技能树对于她的缺点——无法应对位面boss几乎没有任何提升，她的技能树既不有趣也不强，没有给温蒂玩家带来任何生活或战斗的体验改善。

温蒂玩家想要什么？

1，也是最核心的，改善对位面boss的应对机制，提高阿比盖尔的存活能力。

2，修改药剂的玩法，药剂作为温蒂的核心机制之一，技能树中居然只有简单的增加药剂时间和堆叠数值的两个药剂，感觉做的很不用心，可以出更多好玩的药剂，论坛有很多关于这方面的想法。

3，增加更多有趣的玩法，类似小惊吓和药剂时间变长这种设计非常偷懒也很鸡肋，建议修改。

4，增加和阿比盖尔的互动，更好地展现温蒂的人物内涵。

5，作为补充，可以改善温蒂玩家的驯牛体验，如果还有多余的技能点数的话。

Is it possible that there are so many Chinese players posting this time because Wendy's skill tree is so bad compared to other people's skill trees?

As a Chinese player, I do like the character Wendy very much, the first character I used when I was a newbie was Wendy, and Wendy accompanied me from a novice to a proficient Don't Starve player, from the previous version of the skill tree to the present. Wendy is beautiful, kind, and loves her sister, and her melancholy and slightly misanthropic temperament attracted me. Many of her lines are poetic and philosophical, enriching the character while also making the player feel sorry for the bereaved little girl. In the previous version of the plane damage, Wendy may not be the strongest, but she is also one of the strongest characters, she has an advantage in fighting bosses such as dragon flies, queen bees, and king crabs, and aoe damage can make the player's life very comfortable. But everything changed after the moon version.

The point of annoyance to the player is that Wendy's skill tree has shortcomings for her - she can't handle the plane bosses with little to no improvement, her skill tree is neither fun nor strong, and it doesn't give Wendy any improvement in the life or combat experience.

What do Wendy players want?

1, and the most core, improve the coping mechanism against the plane boss and increase Abigail's survivability.

2,Modify the gameplay of the potion,Elixir as one of Wendy's core mechanisms,There are only two potions in the skill tree that simply increase the potion time and stack value.,I feel like it's not careful.,You can make more fun potions.,There are a lot of ideas on this in the forum.。

3. Add more interesting gameplay, similar to small scares and potion time becomes longer, this design is very lazy and chicken, it is recommended to modify.

4. Increase the interaction with Abigail to better show Wendy's character connotation.

5. As a supplement, it can improve the cattle taming experience of Wendy players, if there are still extra skill points.

[whiteking]

Chinese players.
My friend told me that Wendy's new skill is very ridiculous, so I came to the forum to take a look.
Wendy is indeed one of the most popular characters in China. I don't think it is because of his appearance, because most Chinese players pay more attention to character strength (at least as a loyal player of Maxwell, I don't think his horse face is more handsome than Wilson's. Ha ha.). Before the Maxwell update, Wendy was even considered one of the most powerful characters, known as the "Valkyrie Wen" (female Valkyrie is a common term for Chinese players to refer to Wigfrid), and players generally believed that she was stronger than Wigfrid.
Wendy has a sisters who can protect her, and can easily kill a large number of creatures with low HP (such as spiders), which is enough for novice players. Who else is stronger than her in this regard? You cannot deny that the updated Maxwell and Wanda are very strong, even too strong, but the characteristics of the Glass Cannon make them unsuitable for beginners.
However, you can notice that Wendy also performs well when facing bosses. Being able to fight against bosses and a large number of small monsters at the same time is a very scary thing. Even strong players like Maxwell and Wolfgang cannot achieve this. Abigail can attach debuffs to the boss, allowing Wendy and her companions to gain higher attack power when beating the boss, and if Wendy rides a beefalo, these two effects can even be stacked. The Chinese community almost believes that Wendy must tame a beefalo in order to unleash all her combat potential. It is worth mentioning that Wendy is almost the easiest character to defeat the annoying boss, the queen bee.
It is only natural for a character that is suitable for both novice and skilled players to have high popularity. It is normal for them to have high expectations for Wendy's new skills. Perhaps what they need is not stronger combat power, but at least creative gameplay, like the WX-78 and Maxwell.
But this update feels completely devoid of beauty. Not getting stronger, even inexplicably. I think many people have already said why, so I won't repeat it.
It is worth mentioning that during Wolfgang's first modification, I also saw a lot of dissatisfaction from Chinese players. This highly popular character also makes them concerned. Including me. I still miss the old Wolfgang.
It was mentioned that the Chinese people dislike Wendy's ability to dig graves. I partially agree with this viewpoint. The traditional Chinese concept does consider insulting corpses to be a very bad behavior. They believe that even if the person has made a mistake, if they have already left this world, they should not be overly pursued. If someone intentionally destroys the body of a deceased person, it is almost certain that someone holds a great hatred towards them. But at the same time, China also has a strong cultural inclusiveness, and now China is a very modern country. For example, the Chinese people think that the death of a loved one is a sad thing, and they should show sorrow rather than joy at the funeral, but when they hear that in a country in Africa, someone carries a coffin and dances to bid farewell to the deceased in a joyful way, they also express their approval. This video has over 60 million views on Bilibili. Ah, of course, I don't think this skill is designed well at all. I don't understand the positive significance of this skill.

[KrazJoe]

Chinese would voluntary move graves for better feng shui. I don't know much other culture moving graves in general.

[Peasant]

1 minute ago, KrazJoe said:

Chinese would voluntary move graves for better feng shui. I don't know much other culture moving graves in general.

That's…not very accurate. Feng shui is considered superstition long ago, I doubt if there's anyone apart from the old still believe that.

[zzzzzzzzzzz]

I've been playing Wendy for the whole dst game time.

[Catapult 2.0]

On 11/27/2024 at 5:17 PM, loopuleasa said:

Wortox and Walter get no traction, and in past beta branches we never saw these many Chinese posts.

I'm a 4.8k all-character Chinese gamer, and my entry character is Wendy, who has at least 800 hours of playtime, because she and Wigford are the two easiest characters to get started in the era of character rework (which doesn't have much to do with culture), but I've been speaking for Walter since this test server, and I still want the characters to be balanced