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

[_mylilsunshine_]

3 hours ago, Radicaljoe said:

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. 

I feel like better players never go through the experience of your armour breaking, you take a 75 damage hit + 150 sanity, instantly go insane, and you fumbling to heal health+sanity while fighting nightmare swarm. It's a lot.

[cropo]

I always felt his sanity downside was absolutely ridiculous to begin with. His Bee allergy is cute from a lore perspective but an additional needless disadvantage when one of the biggest progression milestones is a giant bee. Even so, the solution shouldn't be to buff his range but to change that absolutely ridiculous downside or buff the supposed upside portion of it by having it work on magic items.

[Radicaljoe]

4 hours ago, cropo said:

I always felt his sanity downside was absolutely ridiculous to begin with. His Bee allergy is cute from a lore perspective but an additional needless disadvantage when one of the biggest progression milestones is a giant bee. Even so, the solution shouldn't be to buff his range but to change that absolutely ridiculous downside or buff the supposed upside portion of it by having it work on magic items.

See. crazy thing. It USED to work on magic items. I thought it was a cool mechanic. You were given a tangible benefit of using darkswords because you were trading safety for no held drain. 
Then they stole that perk and gave it to Maxwell.

[readkey]

4 hours ago, cropo said:

I always felt his sanity downside was absolutely ridiculous to begin with. His Bee allergy is cute from a lore perspective but an additional needless disadvantage when one of the biggest progression milestones is a giant bee. Even so, the solution shouldn't be to buff his range but to change that absolutely ridiculous downside or buff the supposed upside portion of it by having it work on magic items.

His bee allergy is to prevent him to regain sanity too easily, since almost every strong sanity food is made by honey. He already ignores almost every sanity aura outside of fighting, so unless you are doing boss rush, you sometimes even forget there is a thing called sanity. Therefore it is fair that he should not be gaining back sanity too easily.

I honestly don't find his downside being ridiculous. It is just another thing you should be mindful to, like Warly's diet. And as pointed out in the other threads, Walter melee actually loses less sanity than other characters as long as you are not face tanking bosses, because he is immune to their sanity aura. You don't even have to kite perfectly - just dodge as much as you can, you probably lose almost the same amount of sanity as, if not even less than the others. I still use his melee when it is convenient.

[Torpeda]

On 12/2/2024 at 11:13 PM, Mysterious box said:

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.

I don't know why you bring that up specifically. I listed Pebbles among other rounds just to showcase that they're easily available. It's pretty obvious they don't do meaningful damage.
Maybe there are safer and faster methods of combat, so what? Should Walter be the safest and the fastest character in combat to make people play him? I don't really get this argument.

On 12/2/2024 at 11:13 PM, Mysterious box said:

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.

The tools I was talking about is everything you can do with him. He doesn't lose Sanity which is a big thing (it even allows you to get safely through the night with just a few percentages on a torch), has portable tent, can use Gold Rounds to farm Gold, can use Pebbles and Gold Rounds to easily kill Butterflies, Birds and Rabbits, has three easy to craft utility rounds, has personal chester and has an access to a pseudo-beefalo at all times. You can use his ammo for Brighthsade farms, you can wall off Tallbirds and just shoot them to get meat and eggs, you can start shooting monkeys while on the boat before they reach you, you can shoot at Nightmare creatures not risking taking damage, you can instantly aggro Koalefants and MacTusks and many more. When playing Walter I ineed feel like I'm always prepered. Maybe he's just not the right character for you if playing him doesn't give you joy? If you want to play safest, fastest and thus probably the strongest character, maybe you should give Wolfgang a try?

On 12/2/2024 at 11:13 PM, Mysterious box said:

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.

There are three main things to be worried about in this game: Hunger, Sanity and Health. Since we're talking about non-combat survival, his Slingshot covers his Hunger and his fearlessness covers his Sanity. Saying that he's low on the list considering those two things is not a fair statement.

On 12/2/2024 at 11:13 PM, Mysterious box said:

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.

Yes, in multiplayer setting he may still take aggro, but the chances of an enemy comming close enough to Walter to do any harm to him before they're reaggroed by you allies are low. I mostly play with two IRL friends of mine and for the most part it is not an issue.
I don't really like taming a beefalo, so I moslty play Walter at melee range, but there's time and place for every weapon to shine. There are scenarios where I prefer using Slingshot over melee weapon and there are times when I may want to get beefalo. I think having a choice is a good thing, especially considering that you can change weapons mid-combat.
It's easier to not consider his Slingshot a primary weapon if you think of mineral ammo as something that breaks mobs' Health tresholds and provides utility (the latter I've already covered above): Pebbles instantly kill Butterflies, Gold Rounds instantly kill Birds, Rabbits, Moleworms, Carrats, Crustashines and Eyeplants, while Marbles one-shot Batsilisks and Gobblers.

On 12/2/2024 at 11:13 PM, Mysterious box said:

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

 

It's like saying that Wurt requires more setup now than before the skill tree, because she's got new stuff to craft that make her stronger. Skill Tree aside, I think you exaggerate the problem. Walter requires less setup actually, because his base ammo production was increased. And you'll probably obtain your Pig Skin, Silk, Bones and Rope before you even get your first insight point to spent on Customisation and once you craft those add-on's you may craft them never again.

On 12/2/2024 at 11:13 PM, Mysterious box said:

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

Bee Queen is an optional boss and her drops can be acquired via Klaus. And while I realise we're experienced players, Sanity drain is probably the biggest struggle for new players and it's also the reason why I started playing Walter in the first place when I was introduced to this game.
You can't regain Sanity while wearing items, but you can regenerate Sanity while sleeping and you happen to be able to craft portable tent and use it more efficient than any other character. He may not regain Sanity passively, but you also don't lose it passively. For me it's reasonable and feels totally balanced and don't understand this nitpicking.

At first you said that Klei added too much powercreep to his base design, but reading your reply it feels like you actually perceive him as being weak or possibly the weakest of them all and at this point I actually wonder if there is anything that you actually like about his design?
Please, explain to me me what's your idea here, to change Walter and replace every single trait of his with something entirely else? At this point Klei may as well ad new character to this game.

He may not have as strong perks as some other characters, but there are a lot of different things that make playing Walter easier or more interesting in certain aspects.
I love his base design and I would rather not want Klei to change him fundamentally. Some changes to his basic kit could be done, but not at the cost of his identity.
Yesterday I got in-game tip during loading screen saying that Walter is the character best suited to survive in the wilderness and I think it matches him perfectly. I don't know why this forum is so obsessed with combat and I want to say that not every character should be focused around it. There are for sure other characters better suited to face enemies, but I believe there's also a place for one jack of all trades and a survivalist character as well.

[Mysterious box]

19 minutes ago, Torpeda said:

I don't know why you bring that up specifically. I listed Pebbles among other rounds just to showcase that they're easily available. It's pretty obvious they don't do meaningful damage.

The point is that cheap does not equal useful and gold is easier to obtain in mass than rocks even at the best of times they don't have a place.

 

21 minutes ago, Torpeda said:

Maybe there are safer and faster methods of combat, so what? Should Walter be the safest and the fastest character in combat to make people play him? I don't really get this argument.

This wasn't the point it's that Walter is low on the list of "safe" characters.

24 minutes ago, Torpeda said:

he tools I was talking about is everything you can do with him. He doesn't lose Sanity which is a big thing (it even allows you to get safely through the night with just a few percentages on a torch), has portable tent, can use Gold Rounds to farm Gold, can use Pebbles and Gold Rounds to easily kill Butterflies, Birds and Rabbits,

These are called niches not strong perks and everyone is very aware of them believe it or not.

25 minutes ago, Torpeda said:

has three easy to craft utility rounds

Already mentioned this.

25 minutes ago, Torpeda said:

has personal chester and has an access to a pseudo-beefalo at all times.

The chester is neat but using Woby long term as a mount is simply more expensive than taming a beefalo while also being less safe I'm not going to discount that it's nice to have a mount that you can ignore for some time while sticking with you however.

 

28 minutes ago, Torpeda said:

When playing Walter I ineed feel like I'm always prepered. Maybe he's just not the right character for you if playing him doesn't give you joy? If you want to play safest, fastest and thus probably the strongest character, maybe you should give Wolfgang a try?

This just reads like your upset that I'm disagreeing that these niches are strong tools how are you to decide how much I enjoy a character and where does Wolfgang even come from out of this I disagree therefore I should play Wolfgang?

35 minutes ago, Torpeda said:

There are three main things to be worried about in this game: Hunger, Sanity and Health. Since we're talking about non-combat survival, his Slingshot covers his Hunger and his fearlessness covers his Sanity. Saying that he's low on the list considering those two things is not a fair statement.

How isn't it? There are multiple characters who can produce food, hp, and sanity with ease for example if your going for a non combat focused gameplay experience Wendy can setup a sisturn which recovers 25 sanity per minute and Abigail can passively farm butterflies covering all 3 stats passively. Wormwood can bloom covering hp, his farming skills cover all 3 stats, and his planting and digging loop can very easily manipulate his sanity as well. Webber can produce spider wars which cover all 3 stats and gives him access to a infinite use tent. I could go on but the point is Walter's downsides place him pretty low on the list of safe characters as he's not as beginner friendly as the rest.

45 minutes ago, Torpeda said:

Yes, in multiplayer setting he may still take aggro, but the chances of an enemy comming close enough to Walter to do any harm to him before they're reaggroed by you allies are low. I mostly play with two IRL friends of mine and for the most part it is not an issue.

I can't say much about your experience but from mine it came up far more than I was comfortable in faster boss fights pre skill tree so I mainly stuck to melee combat a good majority of the time.

48 minutes ago, Torpeda said:

It's easier to not consider his Slingshot a primary weapon if you think of mineral ammo as something that breaks mobs' Health tresholds and provides utility (the latter I've already covered above): Pebbles instantly kill Butterflies, Gold Rounds instantly kill Birds, Rabbits, Moleworms, Carrats, Crustashines and Eyeplants, while Marbles one-shot Batsilisks and Gobblers.

Speaking from a pre skill tree perspective it never worked out like this for me gold being more common than rocks meant shortly after you spawned in rocks lost all value sometimes even before the first 10 pebbles were used up. Gold was only used until a proper marble tree farm was made there simply wasn't enough to justify juggling several ammo takes for the heck of it in my experience.

51 minutes ago, Torpeda said:

It's like saying that Wurt requires more setup now than before the skill tree, because she's got new stuff to craft that make her stronger. Skill Tree aside, I think you exaggerate the problem. Walter requires less setup actually, because his base ammo production was increased. And you'll probably obtain your Pig Skin, Silk, Bones and Rope before you even get your first insight point to spent on Customisation and once you craft those add-on's you may craft them never again.

It's not your completely misrepresenting the situation and even making weird choices during I mean stop and think about it why would you go for the pigskin band when you need to go to the swamp to get papyrus before you can even modify the slingshot like at that point you have access to spots and have likely found the pig king. Also regardless of whether you think the new upgrades are worth it or not the fact remains they exist as the new standard of the slingshot and that standard says you need to clear the ruins, the lunar island, fuel weaver, celestial champion, and various post rift activities to reach Walter's current max potential and I think that's still more initial setup than just planting some marble trees or farming birds for gold personally.

 

1 hour ago, Torpeda said:

Bee Queen is an optional boss and her drops can be acquired via Klaus. And while I realise we're experienced players, Sanity drain is probably the biggest struggle for new players and it's also the reason why I started playing Walter in the first place when I was introduced to this game.
You can't regain Sanity while wearing items, but you can regenerate Sanity while sleeping and you happen to be able to craft portable tent and use it more efficient than any other character. He may not regain Sanity passively, but you also don't lose it passively. For me it's reasonable and feels totally balanced and don't understand this nitpicking.

The nitpick exists because even if you try your best to avoid combat there's just times when combat finds you especially for a less experienced player and while it's nice to not have to worry as much about sanity in the day to day going insane when fighting something else is often a fatal combination for less experienced players. I'm not saying his fearlessness isn't useful though as I personally like to pair it with a thulecite suit early game as it being magical bypasses his fashion downside so I can spend less time actively recovering sanity or taking an extended nap to bring it up.

 

1 hour ago, Torpeda said:

At first you said that Klei added too much powercreep to his base design, but reading your reply it feels like you actually perceive him as being weak or possibly the weakest of them all and at this point I actually wonder if there is anything that you actually like about his design?
Please, explain to me me what's your idea here, to change Walter and replace every single trait of his with something entirely else? At this point Klei may as well ad new character to this game.

He may not have as strong perks as some other characters, but there are a lot of different things that make playing Walter easier or more interesting in certain aspects.
I love his base design and I would rather not want Klei to change him fundamentally. Some changes to his basic kit could be done, but not at the cost of his identity.
Yesterday I got in-game tip during loading screen saying that Walter is the character best suited to survive in the wilderness and I think it matches him perfectly. I don't know why this forum is so obsessed with combat and I want to say that not every character should be focused around it. There are for sure other characters better suited to face enemies, but I believe there's also a place for one jack of all trades and a survivalist character as well.

I feel like you're misunderstanding something a character doesn't necessarily need to be strong for someone to enjoy them I imagine most Walter players didn't suddenly pick him because they felt he was powerful in any particular aspect and even if he ends up being one of the weakest characters somehow by the end of all the skill trees it's not like I'm going to suddenly abandon the character if I were I'd have done so years ago I simply enjoy Walter but that doesn't mean I don't want to see him improved if he can be nor does it mean I want him to become some weapon of mass destruction either.

[Torpeda]

15 hours ago, Mysterious box said:

The point is that cheap does not equal useful and gold is easier to obtain in mass than rocks even at the best of times they don't have a place.

 

It's pretty obvious. I started my reply with listing all base mineral rounds he can craft and how to easily obtain them, but in this reply I focused mainly on Cursed Rounds, but you ignored it and focused for some reason on damn Pebbles. :P

15 hours ago, Mysterious box said:

This wasn't the point it's that Walter is low on the list of "safe" characters.

It was literally the point. I've said "He's not the safest when it comes to combat, outside of the combat I think he actually is the safest character to play" and you argued that "the problem is that he isn't he's actually pretty low on that list too".

15 hours ago, Mysterious box said:

These are called niches not strong perks and everyone is very aware of them believe it or not.

Now when reading the comments again, I admit that I might have phrased that badly. When I said "he's got really strong tools to work with" I didn't mean that every single perk of his is strong, but rather that the combination of those different perks is what makes them strong. And while they are not the strongest when it comes to Walter, giving so many perks to any other character would make them pretty unbalanced.

15 hours ago, Mysterious box said:

Already mentioned this.

I know you've already said it, but does it prevent me from mentioning them again when writing a list of all things he does?

15 hours ago, Mysterious box said:

This just reads like your upset that I'm disagreeing that these niches are strong tools how are you to decide how much I enjoy a character and where does Wolfgang even come from out of this I disagree therefore I should play Wolfgang?

I said it ironically, because you said that "there are both safer and faster methods of combat is what turns people off Walter". It's just that there are people like me who play Walter because they enjoy having all those different niche perks he has and/or people who enjoy this little challenge of maintaing his Sanity during fights. What about us? Can't we enjoy the character the way he is? I agree that Walter should be changed in such a way to make him more accessible to other players, but at the same time I feel like we should not forget about those who already play him and enjoy him. And please don't take it personally, it's clearly visible that you care about the character as much as I do and I admire it, because it shows you're passionate about Walter and care about his design and future within the Constant. We've got slightly different perspective on some things, but I think we can agree that Walter is in dire need of help.

16 hours ago, Mysterious box said:

How isn't it? There are multiple characters who can produce food, hp, and sanity with ease for example if your going for a non combat focused gameplay experience Wendy can setup a sisturn which recovers 25 sanity per minute and Abigail can passively farm butterflies covering all 3 stats passively. Wormwood can bloom covering hp, his farming skills cover all 3 stats, and his planting and digging loop can very easily manipulate his sanity as well. Webber can produce spider wars which cover all 3 stats and gives him access to a infinite use tent. I could go on but the point is Walter's downsides place him pretty low on the list of safe characters as he's not as beginner friendly as the rest.

And with Walter you can place a Fire Pit next to Pig King and shoot Birds, giving you Feathers and Morsel. Convert Morsel to Gold and turn Gold into Gold Rounds and use Feathers to make fire to cook remaining Morsels. Rinse and Repeat. Listen, I'm not going to argue which character does it better. I argued with the fact that you've placed him low on the list of characters being able to survive in the wilderness. Birds are everywhere, so wherever you go, you have an access to food.

16 hours ago, Mysterious box said:

Gold was only used until a proper marble tree farm was made there simply wasn't enough to justify juggling several ammo takes for the heck of it in my experience.

I'm on the other hand always carrying a stack of gold in my inventory on all characters just in case and I tend to save Marble for less trivial tasks. And I envy you that you manage to find gold so early on haha. Every time I start a new world I cannot find neither Gold, nor Monster Meat for my Woby. The last time I played Walter on PTR I found Rockyland with Spider Dens on day 5 and it's always like this. I'm so unlucky. ;(

16 hours ago, Mysterious box said:

It's not your completely misrepresenting the situation and even making weird choices during I mean stop and think about it why would you go for the pigskin band when you need to go to the swamp to get papyrus before you can even modify the slingshot like at that point you have access to spots and have likely found the pig king. Also regardless of whether you think the new upgrades are worth it or not the fact remains they exist as the new standard of the slingshot and that standard says you need to clear the ruins, the lunar island, fuel weaver, celestial champion, and various post rift activities to reach Walter's current max potential and I think that's still more initial setup than just planting some marble trees or farming birds for gold personally.

I'm not really going for anything specifically. If I find the stuff, I upgrade the Slingshot, however once you unlock all available Customisation perks there's little to customise once you get Best in Slot items. If I'm lucky to find the right Biomes, I will go for those BiS items right away. I don't understand while the stronger Attack Speed upgrade is gated behind Ancient Fuelweaver considering that it provides only around 9% AS, you need to spend a few days to get enough Insight points to unlock it and to gather other materials along the way. Customisation as a Skill Tree branch is in my opinion badly designed. They could be simple passive perks like "Increase the range of Slingshot by X%", increase the attack speed of Slingshot by Y%". If Customisation was given to Walter as a baseline perk it would made sense that you would require some preparation, but as it is right now, the bonuses that Customisation provides are not worth the hustle (unfortunatelly there's barely anything else to choose from). Overall I agree with your statement 100%. While increased ammo production overall reduces the amount of resources needed to get the same amount of projectiles compared to live servers, the level of preparation required to achieve Walter's PTR max potential is too high for providing so little.

17 hours ago, Mysterious box said:

I feel like you're misunderstanding something a character doesn't necessarily need to be strong for someone to enjoy them I imagine most Walter players didn't suddenly pick him because they felt he was powerful in any particular aspect and even if he ends up being one of the weakest characters somehow by the end of all the skill trees it's not like I'm going to suddenly abandon the character if I were I'd have done so years ago I simply enjoy Walter but that doesn't mean I don't want to see him improved if he can be nor does it mean I want him to become some weapon of mass destruction either.

I'm saying the opposite. I think that a character doesn't need to be strong for someone to enjoy them, too. My perspective is that since Walter has so many small perks in his kit not focused around combat and that Slingshot is a ranged weapon, there's no real way to balance him around Slingshot's damage. Same thing with Woby, it doesn't matter how many perks will be given to Woby, she can't compete with Beefalo. If Slingshot is to replace Melee weapons and Woby is to replace Beefalo for Walter, they would need to become at least on par to their counterparts. I think Klei should focus more on utility and survival perks for the Skill Tree to work. We got all those different ammo dealing different amount of damage, but in reality it's illusion of choice, because all of them deal similar amount of DPS and are outclassed by Cursed Rounds anyway which is pretty cheap to craft with new Projectile Pro. Customisation doesn't make sense, because it requires too much preparation for what it does and the best upgrades are gated behind post-rift content for some reason. Woby requires a lot of time to train to be still worse version of a Beefalo. And I don't like the Skill Tree that was presented by Klei, because it's a lot of grinding for some mediocre improvements compared to other characters that have already received their Skill Trees and I am afraid that with current Skill Tree people will play Walter a little bit to check his new perks out, but then gonna quickly realise that he hasn't changed that much and doesn't really bring anything new to the table and he will end up being the least popular character once again.

[Mysterious box]

2 hours ago, Torpeda said:

It was literally the point. I've said "He's not the safest when it comes to combat, outside of the combat I think he actually is the safest character to play" and you argued that "the problem is that he isn't he's actually pretty low on that list too".

To be more direct about it. Walter is not really safe a pick to anyone who isn't already a more experienced player and because of that I can't really see him as such.

2 hours ago, Torpeda said:

I said it ironically, because you said that "there are both safer and faster methods of combat is what turns people off Walter". It's just that there are people like me who play Walter because they enjoy having all those different niche perks he has and/or people who enjoy this little challenge of maintaing his Sanity during fights. What about us? Can't we enjoy the character the way he is? I agree that Walter should be changed in such a way to make him more accessible to other players, but at the same time I feel like we should not forget about those who already play him and enjoy him. And please don't take it personally, it's clearly visible that you care about the character as much as I do and I admire it, because it shows you're passionate about Walter and care about his design and future within the Constant. We've got slightly different perspective on some things, but I think we can agree that Walter is in dire need of help.

I completely agree but I do want to say I said that because it is definitely a truth of Walter. Personally I don't think I'd like if he got too big of a shake up to his current gameplay identity either but I'm not against improving him if it doesn't detract too much from his experience

2 hours ago, Torpeda said:

And with Walter you can place a Fire Pit next to Pig King and shoot Birds, giving you Feathers and Morsel. Convert Morsel to Gold and turn Gold into Gold Rounds and use Feathers to make fire to cook remaining Morsels. Rinse and Repeat. Listen, I'm not going to argue which character does it better. I argued with the fact that you've placed him low on the list of characters being able to survive in the wilderness. Birds are everywhere, so wherever you go, you have an access to food.

Personally I don't think he particularly excels in that area but lets just agree to disagree.

2 hours ago, Torpeda said:

I'm on the other hand always carrying a stack of gold in my inventory on all characters just in case and I tend to save Marble for less trivial tasks. And I envy you that you manage to find gold so early on haha. Every time I start a new world I cannot find neither Gold, nor Monster Meat for my Woby. The last time I played Walter on PTR I found Rockyland with Spider Dens on day 5 and it's always like this. I'm so unlucky. ;(

If your ever in need a gold early on and you aren't sure where to look a alternative option is to look for a brick road those usually lead to pig king and if you have a stick and flint you can make a axe at that point look for a catcoon and hold F which will get you meat you can give to the king for gold.

2 hours ago, Torpeda said:

I'm not really going for anything specifically. If I find the stuff, I upgrade the Slingshot, however once you unlock all available Customisation perks there's little to customise once you get Best in Slot items. If I'm lucky to find the right Biomes, I will go for those BiS items right away. I don't understand while the stronger Attack Speed upgrade is gated behind Ancient Fuelweaver considering that it provides only around 9% AS, you need to spend a few days to get enough Insight points to unlock it and to gather other materials along the way. Customisation as a Skill Tree branch is in my opinion badly designed. They could be simple passive perks like "Increase the range of Slingshot by X%", increase the attack speed of Slingshot by Y%". If Customisation was given to Walter as a baseline perk it would made sense that you would require some preparation, but as it is right now, the bonuses that Customisation provides are not worth the hustle (unfortunatelly there's barely anything else to choose from). Overall I agree with your statement 100%. While increased ammo production overall reduces the amount of resources needed to get the same amount of projectiles compared to live servers, the level of preparation required to achieve Walter's PTR max potential is too high for providing so little.

I do really agree that it's weird how Walter's customization was done when compared to other characters even if it does feel more unique this way honestly the strangest one of all to me is the mimic band upgrade which is impossible to figure out even exists without the devs having pointed it out during the stream at least for me anyway. I honestly thought people would bring that up more honestly.

2 hours ago, Torpeda said:

My perspective is that since Walter has so many small perks in his kit not focused around combat and that Slingshot is a ranged weapon, there's no real way to balance him around Slingshot's damage.

I kind of disagree here his perks are heavily tied to his sanity management downside which most often comes into play during combat due to his fearlessness.

2 hours ago, Torpeda said:

Same thing with Woby, it doesn't matter how many perks will be given to Woby, she can't compete with Beefalo. If Slingshot is to replace Melee weapons and Woby is to replace Beefalo for Walter, they would need to become at least on par to their counterparts. I think Klei should focus more on utility and survival perks for the Skill Tree to work. We got all those different ammo dealing different amount of damage, but in reality it's illusion of choice, because all of them deal similar amount of DPS and are outclassed by Cursed Rounds anyway which is pretty cheap to craft with new Projectile Pro. Customisation doesn't make sense, because it requires too much preparation for what it does and the best upgrades are gated behind post-rift content for some reason. Woby requires a lot of time to train to be still worse version of a Beefalo. And I don't like the Skill Tree that was presented by Klei, because it's a lot of grinding for some mediocre improvements compared to other characters that have already received their Skill Trees and I am afraid that with current Skill Tree people will play Walter a little bit to check his new perks out, but then gonna quickly realise that he hasn't changed that much and doesn't really bring anything new to the table and he will end up being the least popular character once again.

My perspective on it is that I feel like focusing on the slingshot was a good idea but not quite in the way they went about as the slingshot is the most unique thing about his playstyle outside of his downsides and there have been some really creative ideas on how to make the slingshot more interesting like piercing shots and more crowd control options but I also think it shouldn't have been the only focus as I agree survival and utility skills were needed too but those too wouldn't have made him more interesting alone they needed to be added together. As for Woby I feel like her tree kinda does everything wrong and at this point they should just give her a niche of her own.