When other characters' unique combat gimmicks are better than pure melee, why can't Walter's slingshot also be better?

[_mylilsunshine_]

In DST, you have a few ways to engage in combat, melee is one of them. It is the most straightforward and the risk-reward ratio is very balanced. And some specific characters have unique perks/traits that aid them in combat:

- Willow: strong burn, damage over time, and is a pyro-mage.

- Wendy: soon to be changed, but currently she has a second hand that helps with AoE/crowd control.

- Wickerbottom: book magic, summon either tentacles or bees to swarm enemies.

- Woodie: transform into a beefcake with unique mechanics and attacks.

- Maxwell: puppet master, having shadows as minions.

- Webber & Wurt: summoners, swarm enemies with warm bodies.

- Winona: articifier, nothing can't be solved by a rock chucker, or many rock chuckers.

- Wanda: glass canon, range-enhanced attack with an invulnerability-frame device (Backstep Watch).

Other characters are either comfortable with fighting melee (or can just tame a beef), or having an enhanced melee experience (Wolfgang & Wigfrid). With them in mind, why can't Walter's gimmick, his range Slingshot, be better than a Wes swinging a spear?

I know he is soon to be changed, and the current testing numbers might go up, but the question is why do they still need to be changed and why were they so low in the first place? The devs reasoned that balancing a range character is difficult, and potentially game-breaking. But other characters have broken the game (at least partially) already! And current Walter can also just cheese without consequence, just more time-consuming! In multiplayer, any boss will be a pushover if you have enough heads, so saying that Walter can break the game feels silly to me.

Please give Walter more than just a crutch, at least give him a Stephen Hawking-esque wheelchair.

[Torpeda]

The thing about Slingshot is it's got a massive range, it's available day one, the ammo is easily gathered and can be farmed and it doesn't put Walter in danger, causing his biggest disadvantage to be irrelevant.

Look at Wanda. She's got tiny bit more range, but she requires a lot of setup, a lot of nightmare fuel and you have to put yourself on the verge of dying to maximize her damage.
Walter will never and should never have as much damage potential with his Slingshot as melee weapons, because the risk factor of using Slingshot is not there.

I think focusing Skill Tree entirely on using his Slingshot is a step in the wrong direction, because the weapon cannot be balanced damage-wise. Utility-wise yes, but giving it too much damage just breaks established balance. If Klei wanted to make his Slingshot to work, they would need to make fundamental changes to his character kit.

Cursed Rounds already deals Dark Sword level of damage against stationary targets and if you're playing with other players that can tank boss's, it makes shooting just way easier. Being ranged does mean you don't take as much damage and thus you're not required to stockpile a lot of sanity food, healing or armour.

As I said in another topic, Slingshot was always about utility and to ease his Sanity disadvantage and not to bypass it entirely.

[_mylilsunshine_]

31 minutes ago, Torpeda said:

The thing about Slingshot is it's got a massive range, it's available day one, the ammo is easily gathered and can be farmed and it doesn't put Walter in danger, causing his biggest disadvantage to be irrelevant.

As I said in another topic, Slingshot was always about utility and to ease his Sanity disadvantage and not to bypass it entirely.

The thing is, if Walter has to attack in melee, he is severely punished when you need a high %prot body + Pinetree hat to make melee sustainable. He is discouraged from taking damage, meaning he relies on his Slingshot, yet his Slingshot is currently so underwhelming that his combat prowess is pitiful. If he wasn't supposed to bypass melee combat with his Slingshot, then his sanity downside shouldn't have been as severe, and his utility rounds should have been much better, which they currently are not (pre-beta, hell even in-beta).
Most boss fights are drawn out and either resource-intensive or excruciatingly long with Walter. Having the safety of range means little when there are more windows for mistakes. I used to think like you too, the range, the availability, the cheese, etc. But when I reflect back on my Walter's runs, I have never seriously used the Slingshot for boss fights, mostly melee because it was miles better.

31 minutes ago, Torpeda said:

Look at Wanda. She's got tiny bit more range, but she requires a lot of setup, a lot of nightmare fuel and you have to put yourself on the verge of dying to maximize her damage.
Walter will never and should never have as much damage potential with his Slingshot as melee weapons, because the risk factor of using Slingshot is not there.

Wanda's setup for maximum damage, the floor, is more demanding than Walter, yes. But her ceiling, meaning her maximum potential, is a looooooooot higher than Walter could ever dream of. 142.8 damage/hit whip-range (very significant, actually) weapon that is refuelable? Does not suffer from Slingshot 0.5x attack speed? That's crazy. I do agree that Walter shouldn't reach that kind of potential because he has a lower floor and does not have high skill-expression, but Wanda is an anomaly. She's a glass canon. Walter doesn't have to strive for that, but he can at least be better than how he currently is (which is as good as a Wes swinging a spear).

31 minutes ago, Torpeda said:

I think focusing Skill Tree entirely on using his Slingshot is a step in the wrong direction, because the weapon cannot be balanced damage-wise. Utility-wise yes, but giving it too much damage just breaks established balance. If Klei wanted to make his Slingshot to work, they would need to make fundamental changes to his character kit.

I do agree with this. 

31 minutes ago, Torpeda said:

Cursed Rounds already deals Dark Sword level of damage against stationary targets and if you're playing with other players that can tank boss's, it makes shooting just way easier. Being ranged does mean you don't take as much damage and thus you're not required to stockpile a lot of sanity food, healing or armour.

Before the beta, there was no feasible/efficient way to make a boss stationary or slow enough for the tentacle to hit, meaning his potential is still worse than swinging a Dark Sword or a Thul Club. And then again, not everyone plays in multiplayer. The thing about his Sling attack speed is that the damage window is a lot more narrow/not as good, yet he still has to kite bosses. This means wearing a Magi or holding a Cane, and they all sacrifice a slot that he needs (damage, defense, sanity). Riding a Beef is too easy (I personally don't), riding Woby is a pain since her speed deteriorates and you will have to feed her mid-fight since Walter's damage is straight bum.

[cropo]

I don't really think Walter should be able to compete with Melee; ranged combat on its own has plenty of benefits and has always been a pay-to-win strategy. What I mean by that is the materials to grind blow darts were something you had to go out of your way for unless you played Wickerbottom and even then it was a chore. You were rewarded for this by having the safest combat style in the game.

Being more time-consuming or resource-intensive should be a requirement for ranged combat, either that or it should be mostly limited to utility like Brightshade staff. People said Walter was a bad character because his perks were all over the place and lacked cohesion but for me him having a ranged weapon was always my biggest problem with him. And then Klei released the howlitzer but at least that has a very expensive upkeep. Melee should always > ranged even if a character is built on ranged damage in my opinion.

[_mylilsunshine_]

1 hour ago, cropo said:

I don't really think Walter should be able to compete with Melee; ranged combat on its own has plenty of benefits and has always been a pay-to-win strategy. What I mean by that is the materials to grind blow darts were something you had to go out of your way for unless you played Wickerbottom and even then it was a chore. You were rewarded for this by having the safest combat style in the game.

Being more time-consuming or resource-intensive should be a requirement for ranged combat, either that or it should be mostly limited to utility like Brightshade staff. People said Walter was a bad character because his perks were all over the place and lacked cohesion but for me him having a ranged weapon was always my biggest problem with him. And then Klei released the howlitzer but at least that has a very expensive upkeep. Melee should always > ranged even if a character is built on ranged damage in my opinion.

I can see where you're coming from. I also do believe that range shouldn't be better than melee, even the current Gloomerang and Howlitzer are a bit underpowered compared to melee. I just put that in the title for engagement.

But currently, Walter's Sling is so undertuned that range is not that much better, cheaper, or safer than melee. He doesn't have the firepower, nor the utility to justify being so weak. In the current beta, his combat prowess is better, but when you look at 01 scrap + 01 saffron feather just to craft rounds of 74.8 damage, you will question whether this cost is even worth the very few benefits of Slingshot range attack. So my wish is that his power should be close or adjacent to melee.

[Steorra]

Walter deserve better.

We already have Lunar / Shadow range weapon for post-rift. Walter deserve something more better and fun than Lunar / Shadow one.

[Mysterious box]

2 hours ago, Torpeda said:

The thing about Slingshot is it's got a massive range, it's available day one, the ammo is easily gathered and can be farmed and it doesn't put Walter in danger, causing his biggest disadvantage to be irrelevant.

Look at Wanda. She's got tiny bit more range, but she requires a lot of setup, a lot of nightmare fuel and you have to put yourself on the verge of dying to maximize her damage.
Walter will never and should never have as much damage potential with his Slingshot as melee weapons, because the risk factor of using Slingshot is not there.

I think focusing Skill Tree entirely on using his Slingshot is a step in the wrong direction, because the weapon cannot be balanced damage-wise. Utility-wise yes, but giving it too much damage just breaks established balance. If Klei wanted to make his Slingshot to work, they would need to make fundamental changes to his character kit.

Cursed Rounds already deals Dark Sword level of damage against stationary targets and if you're playing with other players that can tank boss's, it makes shooting just way easier. Being ranged does mean you don't take as much damage and thus you're not required to stockpile a lot of sanity food, healing or armour.

As I said in another topic, Slingshot was always about utility and to ease his Sanity disadvantage and not to bypass it entirely.

1 hour ago, cropo said:

I don't really think Walter should be able to compete with Melee; ranged combat on its own has plenty of benefits and has always been a pay-to-win strategy. What I mean by that is the materials to grind blow darts were something you had to go out of your way for unless you played Wickerbottom and even then it was a chore. You were rewarded for this by having the safest combat style in the game.

Being more time-consuming or resource-intensive should be a requirement for ranged combat, either that or it should be mostly limited to utility like Brightshade staff. People said Walter was a bad character because his perks were all over the place and lacked cohesion but for me him having a ranged weapon was always my biggest problem with him. And then Klei released the howlitzer but at least that has a very expensive upkeep. Melee should always > ranged even if a character is built on ranged damage in my opinion.

While I'm not sure if I think the slingshot should be as good as melee there's some things not quite right here Walter's always had more setup involved in his gameplay loop than Wanda and now it's even more extreme with his moding mini quest. The current problem faced by Walter however is that Klei have added too much powercreep into base design so now he's stuck in a situation where you either have him catchup despite the consequences that would cause which other characters have previously ignored or you let him be left behind and he more or less ends up the same as he was before just a worse alternative to default options. The issues he faces are as follows:

• Despite being a ranged character he does not offer the safest gameplay
• His primary weapon is slower than standard combat in a game where boss fights already take a really long time
• Requires a lot of initial setup more than any character before
• Has one of the harshest downsides
• The gloomerang exists which has melee attack speed and damage output completely defying the rules set on the slingshot and just making it bad by comparison post rift
• Most of what he offers outside of the slingshot has upgrades or side grades that are readily available to everyone without adding his downsides

While I get not wanting him to focus on the slingshot not focusing on it means he'd either just need to be rebuilt or given an entirely new focus to make him more interesting because as it stands he's not the best option for anything really outside of the early game while also having downsides and grind that scare most people away.

[Radicaljoe]

Walter and Wanda always had a weird connection for me.

Like, Walter was kleis first attempt at a glass cannon. Then they made Wanda, who was better at it.

Then they left Walter as glass, and forgot to add the cannon.

However, I think raw damage would be boring, I think even now with all the ammos they added none of the damage outperforms curses rounds right?

I would much prefer Walter be a status inflictor character. Right now he has 3 slows as debuffs for enemies. I'd love more debuff rounds affecting things other than speed. 

(Basically I want Walter to be the Roundrel from Peglin)

[GamePlayer42]

15 minutes ago, Radicaljoe said:

 

I would much prefer Walter be a status inflictor character. Right now he has 3 slows as debuffs for enemies. I'd love more debuff rounds affecting things other than speed. 

heavy on this, i feel like using a multitude of rounds to encourage more depth in his unique combat and obtaining his maximum damage. Just spitballing here, but like, an ammo type that made the enemy more vulnerable to damage for a couple of seconds, or one that ricocheted, theres so much that can be done i think 

[Jakepeng99]

Walter is fine dont buff.

[IAmAFurrz]

just make it so slingshot applies debuffs to bosses (that arent the cancerous slows), while tuning his numbers up close (lesser sanity loss from dmg taken, like pioneer hat taking %damage from sanity loss but negating it completely or something, make him more efficient at using healing items, heal more with them etc)

[Torpeda]

4 hours ago, _mylilsunshine_ said:

The thing is, if Walter has to attack in melee, he is severely punished when you need a high %prot body + Pinetree hat to make melee sustainable. He is discouraged from taking damage, meaning he relies on his Slingshot, yet his Slingshot is currently so underwhelming that his combat prowess is pitiful. If he wasn't supposed to bypass melee combat with his Slingshot, then his sanity downside shouldn't have been as severe

You don't always have to fight at melee range. You definitelly can, but you can fight at range distance as well as fighting on a Beefalo. When you have someone to tank enemies for you, either other players or befriended creatures, you can chill in the backline and just use your ammo. Since you won't be targeted by most enemies in such scenario, the slower attack speed is offset by the fact that Walter doesn't have to move in order to dodge enemies' attacks and that he can provide constant damage.

His main disadvantage is there, because otherwise Walter would have no downsides. If the Sanity wasn't the problem when taking damage, Sanity would never be a problem to him at all.

4 hours ago, _mylilsunshine_ said:

Most boss fights are drawn out and either resource-intensive or excruciatingly long with Walter. Having the safety of range means little when there are more windows for mistakes. I used to think like you too, the range, the availability, the cheese, etc. But when I reflect back on my Walter's runs, I have never seriously used the Slingshot for boss fights, mostly melee because it was miles better.

Again, if you're fighting with someone who can tank the damage, you don't require a lot of resources. You don't have to gather a large quantity of foods, healing, weapons or armour. You can just shoot with your Slingshot and focus entirely on ammo production. I am willing to agree that it's probably harder for Walter to fight mobs when you're playing solo, but the fact that actual "living" in the constant becomes trivial because of lack of Sanity drain is a pretty big advantage as well. And if you happen to fight solo, Beefalo entirely eliminates the Sanity drain problem and if you want to keep using Slingshot as a primary weapon, you can befriend pigs to tank an enemy for you and you have really easy access to raw meat to bribe them with thanks to Gold Rounds.

1 hour ago, Mysterious box said:

While I'm not sure if I think the slingshot should be as good as melee there's some things not quite right here Walter's always had more setup involved in his gameplay loop than Wanda and now it's even more extreme with his moding mini quest.

Yes, there's some setup involvement indeed, but his ammo literally growths on trees. Pebbles are easy to gather thanks to Stone Fruit, Gold Rounds thanks to Pig King, Marble thanks to Marble Tree and you can use variety of different methods to main them fast and easy. Thulecite fragments can be farmed with Dust Moth and through Thulecite itself. You just build Thulecite Wall, destroy it and there you are with 6 Thulecite Fragments. I'm glad that Klei increased his Ammo production and added Projectile Pro, because with it, one Thulecite will provide you with enough ammo to kill most bosses, even if not a single tentacle would hit them.

2 hours ago, Mysterious box said:

The current problem faced by Walter however is that Klei have added too much powercreep into base design so now he's stuck in a situation where you either have him catchup despite the consequences that would cause which other characters have previously ignored or you let him be left behind and he more or less ends up the same as he was before just a worse alternative to default options.

I agree, despite he's sanity problem he's got really strong "tools" to work with. I also think that Walter is complicated enough and that his Skill Tree just adds more unnecessary confusion. Woby Training and Customisation while are cool concepts, they overcomplicate Walter's design even further. They could be simple passive perks and it would work just fine. I also think, that his Skill Tree would be a good idea to shuffle some things around to better balance him as a character. Maybe customisation could become baseline because the effects it provides (except for the frames) are so minor they feel like QoL changes, while Gem Ammo could be made as perks instead and thus be buffed to provide more effect other than Slows or others (just throwing some ideas). There was definitely some space for improvement of his design and Skill Tree was a good moment to reflect more on Walter's concept, but I feel like it's too late now, unfortunatelly, and it indeed could lead to him being improved, but still worse alternative to other characters in the eyes of many.

2 hours ago, Mysterious box said:

• Despite being a ranged character he does not offer the safest gameplay
• His primary weapon is slower than standard combat in a game where boss fights already take a really long time
• Requires a lot of initial setup more than any character before
• Has one of the harshest downsides
• The gloomerang exists which has melee attack speed and damage output completely defying the rules set on the slingshot and just making it bad by comparison post rift
• Most of what he offers outside of the slingshot has upgrades or side grades that are readily available to everyone without adding his downsides

1. He's not the safest when it comes to combat, outside of the combat I think he actually is the safest character to play. It's just a design trade-off.

2. I would not consider his Slingshot a primary weapon. For me it's utility weapon with a lot of applications that could be used in combat as well. His slower attack speed is offset by the fact that in multiplayer setup, he doesn't really have to dodge anything and can provide sustain damage at all times, while other characters have to kite enemies, but I already talked about this above.

3. I talked about it also. Currently he indeeds require some setup, but with buffed ammo production, it's not going to be as much of a problem as before. Increased ammo production is definitelly a good change and welcome one.

4. Only one real downside. Being allergic to bees and not being interesting in fashion are not real downsides, just discouragement to seek other sources of sanity gain, such as sleeping. Anyway, I think yes, it may be the biggest disadvantage to have you Sanity drained quickly upon taking damage among other survivors, but not having your Sanity drained by pretty much anything else is probably as big of an advantage. The fact that you can live in the Constant and being unbothered by anything is crazy good and I don't think people give it enough credit.

[HeatAndRun]

From my understanding, Walter's slingshot is a weapon that provides safety from enemies, and requires high cost of materials in return. The trade off seems quite fair to me.

But things get boring when his (still) underwhelming attack speed - a.k.a low dps - added on top of it. If he can kill things safely from a distance, why the attack speed couldn't be a little more faster? His slow attack speed feels just unnecessarily tedious. Faster attack speed won't be problematic since you'll need to spend the same amount of pellet ingredients to do the same thing anyway. A little more spice, then he can be a definitely interesting character instead of a frustrating experience.

[Memetan]

Walter's slingshot is still a TOOL, let's face it, the best ammo are the ones that slow enemies, and now we have 4 of them, the dps ones are whatever just keep using other weapons. People who doesn't play Walter are so focused that the slingshot is his main perk (SPOILERS: IT ISN'T) that KLEI decided to use 80% of the skill tree on the slingshot giving us 2 kinda 3 good ammo and fixing his ammo economy, but that doesn't make using the slingshot stand against other ways of dealing damage. Also, they left Woby part of the skill tree like at the end. As a Walter main I support @_mylilsunshine_ , you are amazing.

[Mysterious box]

1 hour ago, Torpeda said:

Yes, there's some setup involvement indeed, but his ammo literally growths on trees. Pebbles are easy to gather thanks to Stone Fruit, Gold Rounds thanks to Pig King, Marble thanks to Marble Tree and you can use variety of different methods to main them fast and easy. Thulecite fragments can be farmed with Dust Moth and through Thulecite itself. You just build Thulecite Wall, destroy it and there you are with 6 Thulecite Fragments. I'm glad that Klei increased his Ammo production and added Projectile Pro, because with it, one Thulecite will provide you with enough ammo to kill most bosses, even if not a single tentacle would hit them.

Pebbles are unusable outside of butterflies or cowardly mobs short of the moment you spawn in you'll never use them again it's like fighting with your bare hands but slower but that aside the fact there are both safer and faster methods of combat is what turns people off Walter.

1 hour ago, Torpeda said:

I agree, despite he's sanity problem he's got really strong "tools" to work with. I also think that Walter is complicated enough and that his Skill Tree just adds more unnecessary confusion. Woby Training and Customisation while are cool concepts, they overcomplicate Walter's design even further. They could be simple passive perks and it would work just fine. I also think, that his Skill Tree would be a good idea to shuffle some things around to better balance him as a character. Maybe customisation could become baseline because the effects it provides (except for the frames) are so minor they feel like QoL changes, while Gem Ammo could be made as perks instead and thus be buffed to provide more effect other than Slows or others (just throwing some ideas). There was definitely some space for improvement of his design and Skill Tree was a good moment to reflect more on Walter's concept, but I feel like it's too late now, unfortunatelly, and it indeed could lead to him being improved, but still worse alternative to other characters in the eyes of many.

Aside from his crowd control rounds which could be argued to be multiple tools I'm not really sure what other strong tools he has he does have useful abilities outside of the slingshot but I wouldn't call them particularly strong. That being said I also sort of understand why Klei didn't lean super hard into crowd control beyond what we have as well since that would probably create a even bigger balance issue.

1 hour ago, Torpeda said:

1. He's not the safest when it comes to combat, outside of the combat I think he actually is the safest character to play. It's just a design trade-off.

The problem is that he isn't he's actually pretty low on that list too as outside of combat the only unique advantages he has is easily countered by a tophat if your not actively participating in more dangerous fights besides the character of choice for that style of play is and will probably always be Wendy.

1 hour ago, Torpeda said:

2. I would not consider his Slingshot a primary weapon. For me it's utility weapon with a lot of applications that could be used in combat as well. His slower attack speed is offset by the fact that in multiplayer setup, he doesn't really have to dodge anything and can provide sustain damage at all times, while other characters have to kite enemies, but I already talked about this above.

He still pulls aggro in a multiplayer setting if he doesn't manage how fast he attacks and even then in most cases fights would be easier if he just joined in for melee since bosses already melt to multiplayer and this is even more so with how powerful other characters are nowadays. It's hard not to see the slingshot as a primary weapon as even in it's initial design 5 out of the 7 ammo types melty marbles included were specifically targeted towards inflicting damage heck even the freeze rounds before this skill tree were just a worse ice staff.

1 hour ago, Torpeda said:

3. I talked about it also. Currently he indeeds require some setup, but with buffed ammo production, it's not going to be as much of a problem as before. Increased ammo production is definitelly a good change and welcome one.

His improved ammo production does help but since so much has been added to improve the slingshot he ends up needing to do more setup than he did prior

 

1 hour ago, Torpeda said:

4. Only one real downside. Being allergic to bees and not being interesting in fashion are not real downsides, just discouragement to seek other sources of sanity gain, such as sleeping. Anyway, I think yes, it may be the biggest disadvantage to have you Sanity drained quickly upon taking damage among other survivors, but not having your Sanity drained by pretty much anything else is probably as big of an advantage. The fact that you can live in the Constant and being unbothered by anything is crazy good and I don't think people give it enough credit.

Bee queen is a real threat to him to say that's not a real downside is silly same goes for fashion as while he can wear things like the thulecite suit to regain sanity it means his means to gain sanity passively are very limited, and for the sanity on hit not having sanity drain passively is a nice perk but losing it on hit means you'll be losing sanity when it matters most rather than when it matters least. The main reason people don't give this advantage credit is sanity management outside of combat has been turned into a joke by other character abilities. Take willow for example for the low price of burning some bees who can't fight back she can layer fireballs that'll instantly restore your sanity, or Maxwell who goes above just being unbothered by the constant and instead passively gains enough sanity to not be bothered by insanity outside of combat while coming with many additional benefits. Even on the lower ends of the scale you have Wendy whose altar gives anyone nearby 25 sanity per min.

Basically the main problem comes down to before the skill tree Walter didn't really accel at anything he had abilities but none of them could be called particularly strong except those that have been powercrept with time like Woby initially being the only mount allowed in caves and with the current build of the skill tree he accels at something but that's just really the slingshot so if the idea is that we should treat it like a tool then that would mean Walter doesn't have much to offer in exchange for all the risks he has you take on. I've been playing Walter for years and while I'll continue to enjoy him regardless of how he ends up it'd be nice if he has something good/fun to offer beyond his more niche perks and hey look I can kill a boss very slowly from a distance when the game in basically every other aspect has evolved beyond that.

1 hour ago, Memetan said:

Walter's slingshot is still a TOOL, let's face it, the best ammo are the ones that slow enemies, and now we have 4 of them, the dps ones are whatever just keep using other weapons. People who doesn't play Walter are so focused that the slingshot is his main perk (SPOILERS: IT ISN'T) that KLEI decided to use 80% of the skill tree on the slingshot giving us 2 kinda 3 good ammo and fixing his ammo economy, but that doesn't make using the slingshot stand against other ways of dealing damage. Also, they left Woby part of the skill tree like at the end. As a Walter main I support @_mylilsunshine_ , you are amazing.

The initial spread of his ammo types and the current design of the tree completely fly in the face of the idea that the slingshot is supposed to be just a tool it never was it's just always had the misfortune of being bad compared to the alternatives but that's a common theme that followers a lot of items and food even.

[_mylilsunshine_]

He got better, but how much, really?

In this video, Walter could safely and easily kill Bee Queen, the bane of his existence, with relatively little setup (also Ameslarii is a great player). You might argue that this is why the Slingshot is fine as it currently is (beta), but the thing is that, Walter could already do this before (pre-beta). Instead of 8mins, it would maybe take 13mins, with more resources involved. That is still painfully slow, and even with all of the new rounds, Cursed is still relatively the best, so the changes are moot.

Wendy, can kill Bee Queen in 1-2mins; Wortox, in 3-4 on day 1 (again, Ameslarii's skill contributes a lot to the kill-time). Oh, and Willow can kill Bee Queen in 5mins on day 2 as well. And they both do this just as easily and safely as Walter (relatively). How is it that in the same update, the other two characters are given much better tools, while Walter gets the shaft--

while typing this out, I had some revelations about my arguments that dispute it, but I still wanna argue damnnit!

[Lardee]

It can't be better because of the risk/reward dynamic.

Ranged combat is very low risk, so it follows that the tradeoff is a lower reward compared to a high risk interaction like melee.  This is my opinion about Klei's approach to the slingshot.

 

With that said, I don't see why Klei couldn't introduce a high damaging (reward) ammo if it was balanced out by being very expensive (risk). To my knowledge, his highest DPS ammo is arguably still cursed rounds which is just sad.

[_mylilsunshine_]

11 minutes ago, Lardee said:

With that said, I don't see why Klei couldn't introduce a high damaging (reward) ammo if it was balanced out by being very expensive (risk). To my knowledge, his highest DPS ammo is arguably still cursed rounds which is just sad.

yep yep, even the most expensive rounds (Shockscrap, Dreadstone, Brightshade) are still worse than Cursed, so even if the risk-reward philosophy is in play, Walter's ain't being rewarded much.

11 minutes ago, Lardee said:

Ranged combat is very low risk, so it follows that the tradeoff is a lower reward compared to a high risk interaction like melee.  This is my opinion about Klei's approach to the slingshot.

Low risk if you can kite and/or cheese. The former is rather difficult unless you sacrifice a body slot for Magi, damage window for a Cane, or ride either Woby (needs maintenance mid-fight) or a Beef (not my personal choice). Not all bosses you can kite though, DFly is a pain and not meant for range combat. The latter is, questionable. It's a single-player game most of the time so if you cheese it doesn't really matter. But I want to fight bosses legitimately, using the full non-cheese extent of Walter's gimmick. Yet I don't feel satisfactory or rewarded enough to do so.

[Dingle]

4 minutes ago, _mylilsunshine_ said:

He got better, but how much, really?

In this video, Walter could safely and easily kill Bee Queen, the bane of his existence, with relatively little setup (also Ameslarii is a great player). You might argue that this is why the Slingshot is fine as it currently is (beta), but the thing is that, Walter could already do this before (pre-beta). Instead of 8mins, it would maybe take 13mins, with more resources involved. That is still painfully slow, and even with all of the new rounds, Cursed is still relatively the best, so the changes are moot.

Wendy, can kill Bee Queen in 1-2mins; Wortox, in 3-4 on day 1 (again, Ameslarii's skill contributes a lot to the kill-time). Oh, and Willow can kill Bee Queen in 5mins on day 2 as well. And they both do this just as easily and safely as Walter (relatively). How is it that in the same update, the other two characters are given much better tools, while Walter gets the shaft--

while typing this out, I had some revelations about my arguments that dispute it, but I still wanna argue damnnit!

For the Wortox example, a kill like that requires 4 or 5 killer beehives spawning really close to beequeens hive. A gimmick that can't be relied on.

 

4 minutes ago, Lardee said:

It can't be better because of the risk/reward dynamic.

Ranged combat is very low risk, so it follows that the tradeoff is a lower reward compared to a high risk interaction like melee.  This is my opinion about Klei's approach to the slingshot.

 

With that said, I don't see why Klei couldn't introduce a high damaging (reward) ammo if it was balanced out by being very expensive (risk). To my knowledge, his highest DPS ammo is arguably still cursed rounds which is just sad.

I still think the devs should have designed the slingshot to always be low damage, but to have increasingly powerful debuff effects. To encourage flipping between it and melee if solo, or being debuff support on a team. Probably way too late now.

[Copyafriend]

4 minutes ago, _mylilsunshine_ said:

Low risk if you can kite and/or cheese. The former is rather difficult unless you sacrifice a body slot for Magi, damage window for a Cane, or ride either Woby (needs maintenance mid-fight) or a Beef (not my personal choice). The latter is, questionable. It's a single-player game most of the time so if you cheat it doesn't really matter. But I want to fight bosses legitimately, using the full non-cheese extent of Walter's gimmick. Yet I don't feel satisfactory or rewarded enough to do so.

kiting with the entire range of the slingshot is so much easier than kiting with any other weapon.

The only other potential weapon that could do enough dps to be worth using is blowdarts, which are so expensive it's not even funny (They DO however blow walter out of the water)

 

Day 1 or day 10 setups aren't realistic. speedrunners should not be the primary basis for comparison. Day 30 setups are. A fully tamed beefalo is probably standard for walter, and makes killing beequeen laughably easy and safe, but slow.

Walter can literally slowly walk away from enemies and easily dodge them. for deerclops or any other standard giant, i would be shocked if even a new player was killed by the boss. They simply have to shoot and stop shooting and walk away when the boss tries to hit them. the shooting animation can even be cancelled.

 

[_mylilsunshine_]

59 minutes ago, Copyafriend said:

kiting with the entire range of the slingshot is so much easier than kiting with any other weapon.

Walter can literally slowly walk away from enemies and easily dodge them. for deerclops or any other standard giant, i would be shocked if even a new player was killed by the boss. They simply have to shoot and stop shooting and walk away when the boss tries to hit them. the shooting animation can even be cancelled.

The Slingshot as a combat crutch for casual/new players is fine, I think it serves that purpose well. But there should be noticeable and substantial upgrades for those who want to use the Slingshot in the mid/end-game. In the current beta build, it doesn't feel that way. Even a utility-centric role isn't fulfilled because the ammo and upgrades are so underdeveloped.

[Mysterious box]

37 minutes ago, Copyafriend said:

kiting with the entire range of the slingshot is so much easier than kiting with any other weapon.

The only other potential weapon that could do enough dps to be worth using is blowdarts, which are so expensive it's not even funny (They DO however blow walter out of the water)

 

Day 1 or day 10 setups aren't realistic. speedrunners should not be the primary basis for comparison. Day 30 setups are. A fully tamed beefalo is probably standard for walter, and makes killing beequeen laughably easy and safe, but slow.

Walter can literally slowly walk away from enemies and easily dodge them. for deerclops or any other standard giant, i would be shocked if even a new player was killed by the boss. They simply have to shoot and stop shooting and walk away when the boss tries to hit them. the shooting animation can even be cancelled.

 

The issue with this is when you say it's so much easier than fighting with other weapons would you say that's in comparison to the rest of the cast or just Wilson and equivalents? Walter's is a situation where he's a high risk character but his reward doesn't match even at his peak which is slow gameplay with a higher than normal chance to go into a death spiral. Also no a beefalo should not have to be the standard especially for a character who was given a beefalo equivalent even if it's a bad one. 

Even in the case of slowly walking away I'd assume you mean with icker rounds right? Because those are only usable post rift and only under the shadow alignment otherwise your options are sticky rounds which last around 8 seconds or slowdown rounds which need 3 shots per 30 seconds and if your against a particularly fast boss you probably need to reapply it sooner than that so you're not caught off guard when they suddenly speed swipe you further lowering your already slow dps.

I know I've said this multiple times but the current balance of the game has put Walter in a awkward position as he stands he's still worse than most characters due to most characters being designed with no to low risk and high reward while Walter is high risk and a reward on the lower end of things while having the potential to bore the player due to how much slower his combat is on top of that. Powering him up has the  potential to break the game and I understand that's why there's so much hesitation but it also comes off as strange when this has been brought up in the past and merely glossed over or given a small nerf without fully stopping the interactions. For example when you look at Willow's interaction with mobs that panic from fire, or Maxwell's cage compeletely preventing some boss mechanics just as some examples.

Basically the real answer is probably dst combat needs an update and the slingshot needs a buff but both of those things are unlikely to happen.

[Copyafriend]

3 minutes ago, Mysterious box said:

The issue with this is when you say it's so much easier than fighting with other weapons would you say that's in comparison to the rest of the cast or just Wilson and equivalents? Walter's is a situation where he's a high risk character but his reward doesn't match even at his peak which is slow gameplay with a higher than normal chance to go into a death spiral. Also no a beefalo should not have to be the standard especially for a character who was given a beefalo equivalent even if it's a bad one. 

my whole point is that walter is extremely low risk. low dps is the cost of that low risk, but sometimes it's worth it. If you'd like to be extremely extremely safe you can wear marble armor while riding woby and take literally zero sanity damage on hit while moving faster than WX78.

Beefalo is the standard RIGHT NOW. and saying it shouldn't be the standard doesn't change the fact that it IS standard to have a beefalo. Even once woby gets buffed, a beefalo would be superior to woby by an extremely large margin for fighting bee queen specifically because it avoids walter's allergy completely. It's simply negating a weakness, it's not bad for walter to need an extra crutch for one single boss, lots of characters have a boss they're particularly bad at, walter is just particularly bad at fighting bee queen.

6 minutes ago, Mysterious box said:

Even in the case of slowly walking away I'd assume you mean with icker rounds right? Because those are only usable post rift and only under the shadow alignment otherwise your options are sticky rounds which last around 8 seconds or slowdown rounds which need 3 shots per 30 seconds and if your against a particularly fast boss you probably need to reapply it sooner than that so you're not caught off guard when they suddenly speed swipe you further lowering your already slow dps.

No I do not, I mean with literally any boss that isn't much faster than the player. you can't do this with dragonfly or the twins, but you could easily do it with deerclops, bearger, klaus toadstool, nightmare fuelweaver, treeguards...

literally any boss that doesn't move extremely quickly or stops when they swing at the player. all you need to do is move away when they try to swing at you and you're 100% safe.

many of them stop moving for a second on being hit aswell. you can literally walk away to the edge of the slingshots range and shoot deerclops 6 times before he can even attempt to swing at you.

many fast bosses are also much easier to fight with a slingshot aswell. The twins can be dodged and shot at immediately after they pass you, celestial champion you get more space from it to have more time to react to its attacks. same with the nightmare werepig.

13 minutes ago, Mysterious box said:

I know I've said this multiple times but the current balance of the game has put Walter in a awkward position as he stands he's still worse than most characters due to most characters being designed with no to low risk and high reward while Walter is high risk and a reward on the lower end of things while having the potential to bore the player due to how uch slower his combat is on top of that. Powering him up has the  potential to break the game and I understand that's why there's so much hesitation but it also comes off as strange when this has been brought up in the past and merely glossed over or given a small nerf without fully stopping the interactions. For example when you look at Willow's interaction with mobs that panic from fire, or Maxwell's cage compeletely preventing some boss mechanics just as some examples.

the problem is that walter is in an extremely awkward place as the ranged character in a game not built with range in mind. even just playing with the slingshot normally cheeses 1 on 1 encounters. only a few bosses have any sort of reaction to being hit at range, and the entire game would need to be redesigned with range in mind to really accommodate him properly.

The result of the lack of ranged options in the game is that walter's slingshot is exceedingly good at little to no risk gameplay, this of course is offset somewhat by walter's downside attempting to bring the risk back, however, it does not really succeed in doing so. Walter can both mount a beefalo or his trusty companion to be faster than every single boss in game while also wearing the strongest armor completely negating his downside on a practical level.

Because of the very little of risk involved with walter's gameplay, it then becomes necessary to balance him in some other way. on a practical level, this means that walter needs his damage to be lower than other characters. The near complete safety of his playstyle is then offset by the relatively slow progression of fights encouraging players to fight in melee range instead.

This added with the safety of the ranged option leads to the slingshot to best be used as a crutch for newer players. However, newer players struggle with walter in the day to day. His downside, while relatively inconsequential in a prepared boss fight, is extremely substantial in small day to day fights where you might not be fully prepared with heavy armor and/or a mount.

 

The slingshot is a newbie crutch on a character unfriendly to newbies.

 

Woby himself is perfectly functional (but lacking QoL), but walter as a whole doesn't make a ton of sense. The downside is intended to make the gameplay riskier, but really only serves to deter newer players. The slingshot as a result is in a very very odd place. I like walter as a concept, but honestly I don't find him engaging at all. he's TOO easy, fighting nightmare werepig was a lot of fun, because i could use the slingshot to bait him into the charges, encouraging me to use melee AND ranged, but fighting most other bosses devolves into tedium. I can kill bosses so safely I am dying of boredom during what should be the most action packed part of the game.

 

The best thing for walter would be boss mini-reworks. give deerclops an ice wall that drags you close. let bearger do a charge swipe at the character if they're hitting him from x tiles away. make toadstool fun or something.

 

Walter can't really function as a cohesive character until the problems with ranged combat get addressed. the problems with walter would not be solved by a dps increase. even if every shot did double damage what it does now, the fight would be no more engaging, it would simply be shorter. Walter can't really be fixed by adjusting numbers.

[Mysterious box]

1 hour ago, Copyafriend said:

my whole point is that walter is extremely low risk. low dps is the cost of that low risk, but sometimes it's worth it. If you'd like to be extremely extremely safe you can wear marble armor while riding woby and take literally zero sanity damage on hit while moving faster than WX78.

Beefalo is the standard RIGHT NOW. and saying it shouldn't be the standard doesn't change the fact that it IS standard to have a beefalo. Even once woby gets buffed, a beefalo would be superior to woby by an extremely large margin for fighting bee queen specifically because it avoids walter's allergy completely. It's simply negating a weakness, it's not bad for walter to need an extra crutch for one single boss, lots of characters have a boss they're particularly bad at, walter is just particularly bad at fighting bee queen.

No I do not, I mean with literally any boss that isn't much faster than the player. you can't do this with dragonfly or the twins, but you could easily do it with deerclops, bearger, klaus toadstool, nightmare fuelweaver, treeguards...

literally any boss that doesn't move extremely quickly or stops when they swing at the player. all you need to do is move away when they try to swing at you and you're 100% safe.

many of them stop moving for a second on being hit aswell. you can literally walk away to the edge of the slingshots range and shoot deerclops 6 times before he can even attempt to swing at you.

many fast bosses are also much easier to fight with a slingshot aswell. The twins can be dodged and shot at immediately after they pass you, celestial champion you get more space from it to have more time to react to its attacks. same with the nightmare werepig.

the problem is that walter is in an extremely awkward place as the ranged character in a game not built with range in mind. even just playing with the slingshot normally cheeses 1 on 1 encounters. only a few bosses have any sort of reaction to being hit at range, and the entire game would need to be redesigned with range in mind to really accommodate him properly.

The result of the lack of ranged options in the game is that walter's slingshot is exceedingly good at little to no risk gameplay, this of course is offset somewhat by walter's downside attempting to bring the risk back, however, it does not really succeed in doing so. Walter can both mount a beefalo or his trusty companion to be faster than every single boss in game while also wearing the strongest armor completely negating his downside on a practical level.

Because of the very little of risk involved with walter's gameplay, it then becomes necessary to balance him in some other way. on a practical level, this means that walter needs his damage to be lower than other characters. The near complete safety of his playstyle is then offset by the relatively slow progression of fights encouraging players to fight in melee range instead.

This added with the safety of the ranged option leads to the slingshot to best be used as a crutch for newer players. However, newer players struggle with walter in the day to day. His downside, while relatively inconsequential in a prepared boss fight, is extremely substantial in small day to day fights where you might not be fully prepared with heavy armor and/or a mount.

 

The slingshot is a newbie crutch on a character unfriendly to newbies.

 

Woby himself is perfectly functional (but lacking QoL), but walter as a whole doesn't make a ton of sense. The downside is intended to make the gameplay riskier, but really only serves to deter newer players. The slingshot as a result is in a very very odd place. I like walter as a concept, but honestly I don't find him engaging at all. he's TOO easy, fighting nightmare werepig was a lot of fun, because i could use the slingshot to bait him into the charges, encouraging me to use melee AND ranged, but fighting most other bosses devolves into tedium. I can kill bosses so safely I am dying of boredom during what should be the most action packed part of the game.

 

The best thing for walter would be boss mini-reworks. give deerclops an ice wall that drags you close. let bearger do a charge swipe at the character if they're hitting him from x tiles away. make toadstool fun or something.

 

Walter can't really function as a cohesive character until the problems with ranged combat get addressed. the problems with walter would not be solved by a dps increase. even if every shot did double damage what it does now, the fight would be no more engaging, it would simply be shorter. Walter can't really be fixed by adjusting numbers.

I do agree the game isn't made to handle ranged combat but I can't completely agree that makes Walter a low risk character but that aside I don't think a beefalo should be used as the standard because it removes interaction with his downside in most cases rather than interacting with it and most people aren't going to assume a beefalo is how you're supposed to play a character with a dedicated mount. Woby is a better comparison to make though she does come with her own flaws like the gradual decrease of her speed mattering more as the fight is dragged out though hopefully that will be fixed before this beta is over.

[Radicaljoe]

I'd say Walter is a high risk character, in exchange for range you lose double or equal to your sanity as hp lost. Melee becomes way more dangerous because of this. Since the slingshot is so much slower to deal damage, and deals lower damage fights last a lot longer, and can result in more windows for accidents to happen.