Current Wendy Should NOT go live

[HowlVoid]

Specifically Gestalt abigail.

Something that stuck out to me on the most recent stream was about the balance around range characters; how it walks a fine line from feeling good and breaking the game. 

Does Gestalt Abi not make Wendy a range character?

I want to make it perfectly clear I don't have a problem with the damage, how evasive abi is, or how she has been re-tooled for single target damage. The whole point of G. Abi was to help Wendy against bosses, current iteration seems to do the exact opposite- it is Wendy aiding Abigail. 

Abi's attack cooldown should still countdown but not finish if Wendy hasn't attacked within that time, aka abi attacks after Wendy has done so also. 

Wendy should be require to maintain minimum engagement with the enemy besides just running around in circles.

This would also naturally be slight nerf in damage as Wendy looks for openings. However, even that should be a bit of a pro in regards to having an overall better balance.

Note: By no means am I saying Wendy is a better range character than Walter. But looking closely at how Walter has been balanced around a cost, different required skills, different tiered ammunition, and upgrading the slingshot, abi has a lot going on for very little investment (no upkeep, infinte use, one time cost, etc). I've always seen Wendy as a combat character so I don't have something against her having a range option. But when compared to the range character who is punished for taking damage... something doesn't add up.

I know Wendy has an "attack" command that would bypass that but I'm not sure how I feel about it. Would it feel unituitive to spam where that alone would keep it from being spammed? Is it considered strategic input on Wendy's behalf? It's probably fine as is. 

Edit: Regarding ranged weapons

Spoiler

I want to address, this doesn't change anything if Wendy decides to use a range weapon. There may even be an added variance in attack pattern/player engament if wendy keeps a range weapon on her to maintain abi's engament. It would also have the added cost of which ever way that specific ranged weapon is balanced, and if that ranged weapon does not have an appropriate balance... Well, that's a whole separate problem.

[WenericMember]

Gesalt Abby is def overtuned in her current form.

As you mentioned, I think this version of Abby should have a shorter attention span, and only attack once Wendy has hit a giant 2-3 times

[Jason]

Gestalt Abigail is indeed being revised to require more engagement.

[Maxil20]

I imagine it could be similar to something like Maxwell's shadow puppets, where while they do work without Max nearby, their effectiveness heavily depends on Maxwell being active in the fight and suffer noticable DPS drops if he is not fighting alongside them.

[_mylilsunshine_]

The devs are so engaging I can't help but feel awe and inspired. Can't wait for the holidays!

[OMEGASCRUFF]

It's not just Lunar Abigail. Shadow Abigail has insane damage modifiers on her, too. I'd like to see them increase the duration of the murder buff and scale back the numbers considerably.

[Peasant]

2 hours ago, OMEGASCRUFF said:

It's not just Lunar Abigail. Shadow Abigail has insane damage modifiers on her, too. I'd like to see them increase the duration of the murder buff and scale back the numbers considerably.

They should turn more damage rate into more planar damage, which would be more controlable, and helps Wendy to adapt to post rift environment.

5 hours ago, Jason said:

Gestalt Abigail is indeed being revised to require more engagement.

And shadow Abigail

[Swiyss]

18 hours ago, Jason said:

Gestalt Abigail is indeed being revised to require more engagement.

That's exactly what I don't want in abigail. I'm such a summoner fan where you can fight a boss without interacting with it directly. I've been playing dst for ages crafting gunpowders, range killing bosses with walter and creating contraptions that will fight for me.
The gestalt abigail was weak in the beginning but now it feels perfect to play with. Sure we could get more buttons to make the fight more interactive, but making wendy obligated to participate in it as an intended design would destroy creativity.
Please do not limit the interactions of them.

19 hours ago, HowlVoid said:

Wendy should be require to maintain minimum engagement with the enemy besides just running around in circles.

I DISAGREE WITH THIS COMPLETELY. MAXWELL IS A CHARACTER THAT CAN USE FW GEAR TO SOLO BOSSES WITH SHADOWS ONLY. why can't wendy have the same treatment?

The ONLY way that I play maxwell is by not interacting with the fight as maxwell himself, he's frail and weak JUST LIKE WENDY. WE SHOULD HAVE THIS POSSIBILITY.

19 hours ago, HowlVoid said:

Note: By no means am I saying Wendy is a better range character than Walter. But looking closely at how Walter has been balanced around a cost, different required skills, different tiered ammunition, and upgrading the slingshot, abi has a lot going on for very little investment (no upkeep, infinte use, one time cost, etc). I've always seen Wendy as a combat character so I don't have something against her having a range option. But when compared to the range character who is punished for taking damage... something doesn't add up.

let's compare walter with gunpowder. Jesus ******* christ man are you out of your mind? Making a character less fun for some just because of balance issues like these?

Winona is a better ranger then walter, so what's wrong with that? She can basically spam panflutes or ice staves to lock a boss in place and shoot the crap out of them with catapults, She is not obligated to interact with the fight and that IS the intended design for her, even if she's stronger than wendy (Strong woman vs weak little girl) they still decided that her not participating in it is not an issue.

Why now it has to be an issue?

Walter uses a slingshot, not an ak-47. Maxwell has control of the nightmare fuel itself. Wanna balance things out? then change the lore itself.

Wendy made a pact with maxwell to literally revive her dead sister. And after all this time messing with the magic of the dead, we should atleast expect her to be strong and there's nothing wrong with that because that's her lore and idea, same as wolfgang, his idea is that he's a buff guy with magic powers.

I'm going to repeat myself here WENDY IS WEAK, WENDY IS WEAK, WENDY IS WEAK. ABIGAIL is the strong one. Wendy is just the operator. 

One can't live without the other, wendy is the brain abigail is the power, it is basically how it goes.
I'm having extreme fun playing with summoner wendy where I don't interact with the fight.
Please for the love of god do not ruin the character by forcing me to join the fight. Create 2 worlds:

1. If I join the fight, sure I'll be stronger and beat the enemy quicker
2. If I decide to not join the fight, sure It will take longer.

And I don't have a problem with that, Solo abigail HAS to be weaker than wendy fighting + abigail fighting. BUT, abigail ALREADY buffs anyone who attacks alongside her, IT IS ALREADY NOT AN ISSUE.

Just the attack button if fine for me. And an added button will only make her too strong and eventually nerfed or force wendy to interact.

[djturner]

35 minutes ago, Swiyss said:

The ONLY way that I play maxwell is by not interacting with the fight as maxwell himself, he's frail and weak JUST LIKE WENDY. WE SHOULD HAVE THIS POSSIBILITY.

This is Maxwell's playstyle and he has poor HP to accentuate it. Although I can see why it would seem right for Wendy in a conceptual way, it's not her playstyle and solidly hasn't been ever since Abi's Vex (more than) compensated for Wendy's .75 damage multiplier. She has long been incentivized and designed to fight alongside Abi, not send her sister in and hang back. The "disposable soldier" design is Maxwell's. The "fighting in tandem" is Wendy's.

[Grove]

42 minutes ago, Swiyss said:

That's exactly what I don't want in abigail. I'm such a summoner fan where you can fight a boss without interacting with it directly. I've been playing dst for ages crafting gunpowders, range killing bosses with walter and creating contraptions that will fight for me.
The gestalt abigail was weak in the beginning but now it feels perfect to play with. Sure we could get more buttons to make the fight more interactive, but making wendy obligated to participate in it as an intended design would destroy creativity.
Please do not limit the interactions of them.

I DISAGREE WITH THIS COMPLETELY. MAXWELL IS A CHARACTER THAT CAN USE FW GEAR TO SOLO BOSSES WITH SHADOWS ONLY. why can't wendy have the same treatment?

The ONLY way that I play maxwell is by not interacting with the fight as maxwell himself, he's frail and weak JUST LIKE WENDY. WE SHOULD HAVE THIS POSSIBILITY.

let's compare walter with gunpowder. Jesus ******* christ man are you out of your mind? Making a character less fun for some just because of balance issues like these?

Winona is a better ranger then walter, so what's wrong with that? She can basically spam panflutes or ice staves to lock a boss in place and shoot the crap out of them with catapults, She is not obligated to interact with the fight and that IS the intended design for her, even if she's stronger than wendy (Strong woman vs weak little girl) they still decided that her not participating in it is not an issue.

Why now it has to be an issue?

Walter uses a slingshot, not an ak-47. Maxwell has control of the nightmare fuel itself. Wanna balance things out? then change the lore itself.

Wendy made a pact with maxwell to literally revive her dead sister. And after all this time messing with the magic of the dead, we should atleast expect her to be strong and there's nothing wrong with that because that's her lore and idea, same as wolfgang, his idea is that he's a buff guy with magic powers.

I'm going to repeat myself here WENDY IS WEAK, WENDY IS WEAK, WENDY IS WEAK. ABIGAIL is the strong one. Wendy is just the operator. 

One can't live without the other, wendy is the brain abigail is the power, it is basically how it goes.
I'm having extreme fun playing with summoner wendy where I don't interact with the fight.
Please for the love of god do not ruin the character by forcing me to join the fight. Create 2 worlds:

1. If I join the fight, sure I'll be stronger and beat the enemy quicker
2. If I decide to not join the fight, sure It will take longer.

And I don't have a problem with that, Solo abigail HAS to be weaker than wendy fighting + abigail fighting. BUT, abigail ALREADY buffs anyone who attacks alongside her, IT IS ALREADY NOT AN ISSUE.

Just the attack button if fine for me. And an added button will only make her too strong and eventually nerfed or force wendy to interact.

Wendy being the brain and Abby beinf the power. Or Wendy being the weak operator and Abby being the strong one has never been a thing aside from one quote from Wendy.

Their dynamic has always been that of sisters. They are strong *Together*. That's the point of the whole vex mechanic

I also love Summoner characters too, but interactive summoners are the best.

If you think Maxwell and Winonna can not interact with fights, which you seem to like. So why not play them? Why not play Webber?

Wendy is first and foremost a duo character. You don't play as Wendy, you play as Wendy and Abigail. And yes, you can farm with just Abby, but she will eventually will fall if Wendy doesn't help. Or kill bosses with just Wendy, but it's going to be tedious and agonizing. They are stronger together. And do much greater things together. But being able to do both farming and boss killing with just Abby? With no interaction from Wendy? Should not be a thing. Stands against both thre character's idea, and the a huge part of the game.

There is a reason her alignment skills are called Sisterhood 

4 minutes ago, djturner said:

This is Maxwell's playstyle and he has poor HP to accentuate it. Although I can see why it would seem right for Wendy in a conceptual way, it's not her playstyle and solidly hasn't been ever since Abi's Vex (more than) compensated for Wendy's .75 damage multiplier. She has long been incentivized and designed to fight alongside Abi, not send her sister in and hang back. The "disposable soldier" design is Maxwell's. The "fighting in tandem" is Wendy's.

Not even since Abby's vex. Even before. The whole reason Wendy has 0.75 damage in the first place is because it was expected that Abi would help you during the fight.

 

15 hours ago, Fitzee said:

I agree with the former, but I'll only agree with the latter if shadow Abigail is given something else not related to damage to compensate, like moving or attacking faster.

I think moving faster should just stay being Vigor mortis' thing. The elixirs are a part of Wendy's kit, and it's sad to see them being cast aside due to gestalt Abby and the dash mechanic

[Swiyss]

6 minutes ago, djturner said:

This is Maxwell's playstyle and he has poor HP to accentuate it. Although I can see why it would seem right for Wendy in a conceptual way, it's not her playstyle and solidly hasn't been ever since Abi's Vex (more than) compensated for Wendy's .75 damage multiplier. She has long been incentivized and designed to fight alongside Abi, not send her sister in and hang back. The "disposable soldier" design is Maxwell's. The "fighting in tandem" is Wendy's.

what the f are you talking about, wendy deals LESS DMG unless abi is attacking.

And even if the devs intended for wendy to be forced to join the fight like you mentioned, that's already a bad thing in my opinion, we should promote creativity and balance it out.

abi+wendy = stronger
abi solo = weak
wendy solo = weaker

Don't you understand that I enjoy having to fight longer even if it's weaker just so that I can do it without wendy interacting? It's the idea that counts for me. I could give less care if wendy + abi is stronger when I can do Abi alone while wendy helps.

7 minutes ago, Debruh said:

Wendy being the brain and Abby beinf the power. Or Wendy being the weak operator and Abby being the strong one has never been a thing aside from one quote from Wendy.

then.why.cant.it.be.if.it.promotes.a.different.creative.playstyle.

Don't be close minded. I really do not mind that they did her some way until now. remember, wendy without a skill tree STILL can solo spiders and bees and monkeys without even landing a single hit while abi does the job, this is ALREADY a thing my friend. 

Forcing me to join the fight as wendy, and I repeat,  FORCING me to join the fight is not a great abroad and big creative and expandable design. It is forced design and it is bad for the game.

Cause one day, someone will come and say "well, I want the easiest way to play dst while not interacting much with the enviroment" "sure, you can play wendy and not care much about hounds and bees and spiders and monkeys and pigs etc.. However, the downside is that ->(bosses are harder to kill, so abi can't solo them)".

Question is, why is the game forcing me to join the fight? Well, abi is too weak to fight bosses alone and wendy has to join OR even unsummon abi and fight the boss by herself.

Can it be a possibility for abi to solo bosses without wendy? Sure, but it has to be balanced, so we'll add a bunch of commands and potions and situations that you have to deal with to make that happen, AND it will be weaker if wendy just joined in. Sure, I'm fine with that.

Can it be a possibility for wendy to solo bosses without abi? YES, Absolutely. This possibility already exists, but there is no incentive for it, same as above. But the difference is that trying to solo bosses with ONLY abi was impossible.

15 minutes ago, Debruh said:

Their dynamic has always been that of sisters. They are strong *Together*. That's the point of the whole vex mechanic

just because they are strong together, doesn't mean that they HAVE to fight together dude. Wendy is STILL PARTICIPATING, but not directly.

[Swiyss]

It's not like wendy is just sitting there doing absolutely nothing while abi solos the boss, THAT IS NOT WHAT I MEANT AND NOT WHAT I WANT EITHER.

17 minutes ago, Debruh said:

Wendy is first and foremost a duo character. You don't play as Wendy, you play as Wendy and Abigail. And yes, you can farm with just Abby, or kill bosses with just Wendy. But they are strongest together. And do much greater things together.

no, you're wrong. I can play wendy and never summon abi, I did that a million times. I can also play wendy and only fight with abi, although bosses are almost impossible to fight with only abi due to a lack of control from wendy and character development (which we are getting now with her skill tree).

The problem is the devs forcing wendy to join abi or summon abi to play. That right there is bad design because you are forcing the player to do something a certain way just because you're the one in control. What if I wanna play wendy with abi soloing bosses? Sure they are not currently forcing us to use only abi, but what if they did? Wouldn't that be messed up?

What if you wake up one they and that strat that you love is being destroyed by a dev decision to shut that window only so that things can be a certain way? That's the destruction of creativity.

What if the devs woke up one day and decided to make the only way to play wendy by letting abi solo bosses? What if the devs added up a debuff of -95% damage to monster if wendy interacts with the fight? Then that would also break creativity. Do you guys get it?

If the opposite is true, then why the current way not?

[Grove]

10 minutes ago, Swiyss said:

then.why.cant.it.be.if.it.promotes.a.different.creative.playstyle.

Don't be close minded. I really do not mind that they did her some way until now. remember, wendy without a skill tree STILL can solo spiders and bees and monkeys without even landing a single hit while abi does the job, this is ALREADY a thing my friend. 

Forcing me to join the fight as wendy, and I repeat,  FORCING me to join the fight is not a great abroad and big creative and expandable design. It is forced design and it is bad for the game.

Cause one day, someone will come and say "well, I want the easiest way to play dst while not interacting much with the enviroment" "sure, you can play wendy and not care much about hounds and bees and spiders and monkeys and pigs etc.. However, the downside is that ->(bosses are harder to kill, so abi can't solo them)".

Question is, why is the game forcing me to join the fight? Well, abi is too weak to fight bosses alone and wendy has to join OR even unsummon abi and fight the boss by herself.

Can it be a possibility for abi to solo bosses without wendy? Sure, but it has to be balanced, so we'll add a bunch of commands and potions and situations that you have to deal with to make that happen, AND it will be weaker if wendy just joined in. Sure, I'm fine with that.

Can it be a possibility for wendy to solo bosses without abi? YES, Absolutely. This possibility already exists, but there is no incentive for it, same as above. But the difference is that trying to solo bosses with ONLY abi was impossible.

Abby actually can't solo spiders and monkeys.

Warrior spiders, and monkeys can both kill her in large enough group, meaning Wendy does have to pick off warrior spiders, and individual monkeys to fasten up the process.

The stronger the mob the more interaction is needed.

From riling up Abby, to putting on her elixirs, to using a torch to panic the mob, to fighting it alongside her.

And it's not a creative playstyle, it's a playstyle of just applying elixirs and making Abby dash.

Elixirs are available year round, and easy to get. Mourning glory is easy to get, and their other components are verg simple to get.

Abby and her commands are available from day 1.

Maxwell needs to keep up with Nightmare fuel, and manage his sanity. Or kill one of the two final bosses.

Webber needs to venture to get spiders then keep them safe cause they don't respawn.

Winona needs to refuel her gadgets, or beat one of the two final bosses.

Abby doesn't have a cost to resummom, because she was never meant to be able to accomplish large things on her own. 

Wendy is a duo character. Wendy has to meaningfully help her sister.

17 minutes ago, Fitzee said:

The rest of what I said is still relevant. 

Also, someone suggested that Extra Yield could be replaced with the ability to turn elixirs into Super Elixirs, so more combos can happen.

Ik that it's not all what you said. I was just talking about the speed thing, and wastoo lazy to change the quote. I do agree with what you said btw

[Swiyss]

Imagine if they reworked wolfgang's lore and made him a weak guy that can only get his strenght by using magical weapons? so every other weapon that is not magic will deal less damage on him. Well F*** me that would ruin the character, but it makes sense with his new identity and lore so what gives? Can't you see that the devs can do whatever they want, but if they do it in a way that limits creativity of gameplay, it starts to get really boring to play the game?

It is the same for some puzzle games, MOST OF THEM have like 2 to 6 ways of advancing the level to promote creativity. Imagine a puzzle game where there is only ONE way of completing the level, and there were other ways to do it but the devs said "nuh uh.. you can't use your creativity to do the puzzle this way, you're going to do it MY way" Then suddently the game is trash.

when they made willow skill tree, you had the possibility to use bearnie and buff the cr*p out of him with skills or do it yourself. And one thing that I noted that didn't made sense was the fact that there was no possibility to make bearnie fight bosses solo because the only interactive way of willow to participate was by setting up bearnie on fire every once and a while. Could they make so that willow had more of a summoner vibe? yes, but they didn't. And know wendy is here WITH the possibility of that happening and yet again they are not doing it, but the opposite is happening. They are thinking about forcing the wendy player to use weapons and fight alongside wendy instead of letting abigail shine and wendy be there telling her what to do, managing potions, command attacking or command retreaving.

[Grove]

1 minute ago, Swiyss said:

uuuuhmmmm... Potions?

Yes, potions are a way of interaction. But like I said, the stronger the enemy, the more the needed interaction. There is a point where potions are not good enough, and you need to fight alongside Abby, and there is a point where both potions and fighting along side Abby is needed

3 minutes ago, Swiyss said:

Imagine if they reworked wolfgang's lore and made him a weak guy that can only get his strenght by using magical weapons? so every other weapon that is not magic will deal less damage on him. Well F*** me that would ruin the character, but it makes sense with his new identity and lore so what gives? Can't you see that the devs can do whatever they want, but if they do it in a way that limits creativity of gameplay, it starts to get really boring to play the game?

It is the same for some puzzle games, MOST OF THEM have like 2 to 6 ways of advancing the level to promote creativity. Imagine a puzzle game where there is only ONE way of completing the level, and there were other ways to do it but the devs said "nuh uh.. you can't use your creativity to do the puzzle this way, you're going to do it MY way" Then suddently the game is trash.

when they made willow skill tree, you had the possibility to use bearnie and buff the cr*p out of him with skills or do it yourself. And one thing that I noted that didn't made sense was the fact that there was no possibility to make bearnie fight bosses solo because the only interactive way of willow to participate was by setting up bearnie on fire every once and a while. Could they make so that willow had more of a summoner vibe? yes, but they didn't. And know wendy is here WITH the possibility of that happening and yet again they are not doing it, but the opposite is happening. They are thinking about forcing the wendy player to use weapons and fight alongside wendy instead of letting abigail shine and wendy be there telling her what to do, managing potions, command attacking or command retreaving.

Dude, what?

That would ruin Wolfgang because he's a character about strength.

They didn't add the thing to Willow, because she's a character about fire that was made into a mage character.

And it shouldn't be added to a Wendy, because she's a duo character.

Maxwell is the summoner, Webber is a close one, being a beastmaster. And Winona is also a close one, being a sentry/tower defense character.

[Peasant]

9 minutes ago, Swiyss said:

Imagine if they reworked wolfgang's lore and made him a weak guy that can only get his strenght by using magical weapons? so every other weapon that is not magic will deal less damage on him. Well F*** me that would ruin the character, but it makes sense with his new identity and lore so what gives? Can't you see that the devs can do whatever they want, but if they do it in a way that limits creativity of gameplay, it starts to get really boring to play the game?

It is the same for some puzzle games, MOST OF THEM have like 2 to 6 ways of advancing the level to promote creativity. Imagine a puzzle game where there is only ONE way of completing the level, and there were other ways to do it but the devs said "nuh uh.. you can't use your creativity to do the puzzle this way, you're going to do it MY way" Then suddently the game is trash.

when they made willow skill tree, you had the possibility to use bearnie and buff the cr*p out of him with skills or do it yourself. And one thing that I noted that didn't made sense was the fact that there was no possibility to make bearnie fight bosses solo because the only interactive way of willow to participate was by setting up bearnie on fire every once and a while. Could they make so that willow had more of a summoner vibe? yes, but they didn't. And know wendy is here WITH the possibility of that happening and yet again they are not doing it, but the opposite is happening. They are thinking about forcing the wendy player to use weapons and fight alongside wendy instead of letting abigail shine and wendy be there telling her what to do, managing potions, command attacking or command retreaving.

I agree with the former half, as for the rest…I reckon he's not serious.

[Grove]

25 minutes ago, Swiyss said:

no, you're wrong. I can play wendy and never summon abi, I did that a million times. I can also play wendy and only fight with abi, although bosses are almost impossible to fight with only abi due to a lack of control from wendy and character development (which we are getting now with her skill tree).

The problem is the devs forcing wendy to join abi or summon abi to play. That right there is bad design because you are forcing the player to do something a certain way just because you're the one in control. What if I wanna play wendy with abi soloing bosses? Sure they are not currently forcing us to use only abi, but what if they did? Wouldn't that be messed up?

What if you wake up one they and that strat that you love is being destroyed by a dev decision to shut that window only so that things can be a certain way? That's the destruction of creativity.

What if the devs woke up one day and decided to make the only way to play wendy by letting abi solo bosses? What if the devs added up a debuff of -95% damage to monster if wendy interacts with the fight? Then that would also break creativity. Do you guys get it?

If the opposite is true, then why the current way not?

How am I wrong? Yes, you can fight without Abby, but the drawback is the game being tedious.

It would be messed up if they forced us to use only Abby, because that would go against the playstyle of the character.

If I strat I loved went against the core playstyle of the character, then it has to go. And removing Abby being able to solo bosses, doesn't force you to play a certain way. There are many ways to keep Abby alive during boss fights. There isn't one certain way.

Letting the only way to play be Abby soloing bosses would be bad because it's against the core design of the character. Letting Wendy inflicted a -95% debuff is bad, because that's just god mode.

[Swiyss]

38 minutes ago, Debruh said:

Abby actually can't solo spiders and monkeys.

Warrior spiders, and monkeys can both kill her in large enough group, meaning Wendy does have to pick off warrior spiders, and individual monkeys to fasten up the process.

The stronger the mob the more interaction is needed.

From riling up Abby, to putting on her elixirs, to using a torch to panic the mob, to fighting it alongside her.

And it's not a creative playstyle, it's a playstyle of just applying elixirs and making Abby dash.

Elixirs are available year round, and easy to get. Mourning glory is easy to get, and their other components are verg simple to get.

Abby and her commands are available from day 1.

Maxwell needs to keep up with Nightmare fuel, and manage his sanity. Or kill one of the two final bosses.

Webber needs to venture to get spiders then keep them safe cause they don't respawn.

Winona needs to refuel her gadgets, or beat one of the two final bosses.

Abby doesn't have a cost to resummom, because she was never meant to be able to accomplish large things on her own. 

Wendy is a duo character. Wendy has to meaningfully help her sister.

Ik that it's not all what you said. I was just talking about the speed thing, and wastoo lazy to change the quote. I do agree with what you said btw

Nah cmon man. Let's start this again.

I create a world in don't starve together where my intention is to not interact with fighting, or atleast interact as little as possible with it. Some people and streamers used to do glitches and bugs and abuse game mecahnics to cheese fights and all, And that is f'd up.

Now let's say I love magic, well I can try and play maxwell and make his puppets fight for him, I love doing that. Even if he didn't get his skill tree yet, it is still a quite solid strat (not impossible).

Now let's say I love robots and engineering and mechatronics, well I can play Winona and create and place these catapult machines that will kill the bosses for me and that is lovely.

Now, can winona place a generator and 3 catapults everytime that she gets to a spider nest to clear it? Well, that's not very practical is it?

Now, can Maxwell invoke his shadows everytime he wants to kill 1 or 2 spiders? Well, we all know that it is way easier to just make a spear and slash the enemy with it, right?

Now let's say that there is a character called Wendy, where she can summon her dead sister called Abigail that will fight FOR you cause you're just a frail tiny weak little girl. Well, that's lovely, but there is a problem. The player themselves are not interacting with the fights, they are most likely going to stand still and look, well that is a problem for balancing the game, right? That's why Wendy is a noob character. Another problem is that wendy cannot fight bosses with only abigail, some bosses in this game are made so that 6 people would interact with them. Most bosses will delete abi cause she is a mob type character. That was the old way of balancing things out. She's strong against lots of mobs, but not boss mobs.

Now her skill tree comes out, and there is a chance for them to change that and make wendy balanced and fun at the same time without making it a non-interactive character or forcing gameplay. Amazing.

I am not against making wendy interact with the fights, I am against forcing wendy to punch things alongside abigail. Why is that? well, I've been playing wendy for a long time now, and my favorite thing to do with her was to clear spiders and pigs and hounds and monkeys and bees without having to interact too much with them. Only thing I had to do was to take a closer look at abi's hp and craft some elixirs here and there to just aid her. That's why I wanted willow to be somewhat close to that too, but they decided against it and that's fine.

Now, what was the old way of doing things? Abi had to be unsummoned right before she dies, and then wendy would put flowers in a sisturn and wait for abi to heal back. Once abi was full, then wendy could go back and clear the mobs again. Now, if you didn't want to go back every time to put flowers or didn't want to wait for abi to get to full health, you could pop an elixir on her and she would be full and thriving back again real quick.

What Klei should do in my opinion is :

1. Nerf abigail ability to kill lots of monsters IF wendy is not participating in it. But.. participating in which way? Maybe if wendy let abi fight alone and only look, abi would take more damage, but if Wendy presses a command (Area Of Effect Damage), showing that wendy is there participating by using this little flower command then abi would take regular damage instead of increased damage. That would make so wendy cannot just stand there doing nothing. And let me tell you one thing, unless the devs change something in base abi, she'll still be overpowered no matter what. The devs in my opinion should've fixed this first before introducing her skill tree. Another solution is to make wendy simply fight with her. If wendy is not either attacking the targets or using commands on abi, then abi will take more damage either way. FIXED!
2. Make abigail doable against bosses, but not like in the current state. Right now, gestalt abi can solo almost every boss in the game with wendy almost not even interacting AND at a 0 cost. Wendy has to have more commands to make abi not die, but if wendy does nothing, abi SHOULD die. And if wendy participates in the fights directly, abi should be the one aiding wendy. some examples would be abi attaching to the boss to make it slower or weaker; abi attaches to wendy to make her arms flow with haunted energy and slow or weak the target; abi circles around the boss scaring it to that it deals less damage/takes more damage/gets slowed. In my opinion, a fight where wendy is attacking and kiting while abi is just a free 400 damage every once in a while is such a bad design. It's just a buff and that's it, the player is not even doing anything special like maxwell for example, who can scare, stun and has to manage summons hp and sanity and nightmare fuel all at the same time. Same thing as above, all we need to do is to make the interaction possible and limit the player to not sit there and do nothing.

If they made wendy skill tree somewhat similar to how good the maxwell rework was, then wendy wouldn't have these problems where you have to force players to join fights and buffed abi being able to SOLO bosses with wendy not even touching anything.

If sitting still and doing nothing is a problem, then why can I do that right now with base abi on almost every quantity mob in the game? Fix that first.

And if interacting with the fight by stanting there pressing F is the ONLY fix to this, then you're just limiting player expression and not creating any fun in it. We've been pressing F and running away from mobs since the launch of the game, and we can do that with any character but when we have the possibility to do things in a different way we force people against it? what the heck.

[Grove]

3 minutes ago, Swiyss said:

Nah cmon man. Let's start this again.

I create a world in don't starve together where my intention is to not interact with fighting, or atleast interact as little as possible with it. Some people and streamers used to do glitches and bugs and abuse game mecahnics to cheese fights and all, And that is f'd up.

Now let's say I love magic, well I can try and play maxwell and make his puppets fight for him, I love doing that. Even if he didn't get his skill tree yet, it is still a quite solid strat (not impossible).

Now let's say I love robots and engineering and mechatronics, well I can play Winona and create and place these catapult machines that will kill the bosses for me and that is lovely.

Now, can winona place a generator and 3 catapults everytime that she gets to a spider nest to clear it? Well, that's not very practical is it?

Now, can Maxwell invoke his shadows everytime he wants to kill 1 or 2 spiders? Well, we all know that it is way easier to just make a spear and slash the enemy with it, right?

Now let's say that there is a character called Wendy, where she can summon her dead sister called Abigail that will fight FOR you cause you're just a frail tiny weak little girl. Well, that's lovely, but there is a problem. The player themselves are not interacting with the fights, they are most likely going to stand still and look, well that is a problem for balancing the game, right? That's why Wendy is a noob character. Another problem is that wendy cannot fight bosses with only abigail, some bosses in this game are made so that 6 people would interact with them. Most bosses will delete abi cause she is a mob type character. That was the old way of balancing things out. She's strong against lots of mobs, but not boss mobs.

Now her skill tree comes out, and there is a chance for them to change that and make wendy balanced and fun at the same time without making it a non-interactive character or forcing gameplay. Amazing.

I am not against making wendy interact with the fights, I am against forcing wendy to punch things alongside abigail. Why is that? well, I've been playing wendy for a long time now, and my favorite thing to do with her was to clear spiders and pigs and hounds and monkeys and bees without having to interact too much with them. Only thing I had to do was to take a closer look at abi's hp and craft some elixirs here and there to just aid her. That's why I wanted willow to be somewhat close to that too, but they decided against it and that's fine.

Now, what was the old way of doing things? Abi had to be unsummoned right before she dies, and then wendy would put flowers in a sisturn and wait for abi to heal back. Once abi was full, then wendy could go back and clear the mobs again. Now, if you didn't want to go back every time to put flowers or didn't want to wait for abi to get to full health, you could pop an elixir on her and she would be full and thriving back again real quick.

What Klei should do in my opinion is :

1. Nerf abigail ability to kill lots of monsters IF wendy is not participating in it. But.. participating in which way? Maybe if wendy let abi fight alone and only look, abi would take more damage, but if Wendy presses a command (Area Of Effect Damage), showing that wendy is there participating by using this little flower command then abi would take regular damage instead of increased damage. That would make so wendy cannot just stand there doing nothing. And let me tell you one thing, unless the devs change something in base abi, she'll still be overpowered no matter what. The devs in my opinion should've fixed this first before introducing her skill tree.
2. Make abigail doable against bosses, but not like in the current state. Right now, gestalt abi can solo almost every boss in the game with wendy almost not even interacting AND at a 0 cost. Wendy has to have more commands to make abi not die, but if wendy does nothing, abi SHOULD die. And if wendy participates in the fights directly, abi should be the one aiding wendy. some examples would be abi attaching to the boss to make it slower or weaker; abi attaches to wendy to make her arms flow with haunted energy and slow or weak the target; abi circles around the boss scaring it to that it deals less damage/takes more damage/gets slowed. In my opinion, a fight where wendy is attacking and kiting while abi is just a free 400 damage every once in a while is such a bad design. It's just a buff and that's it, the player is not even doing anything special like maxwell for example, who can scare, stun and has to manage summons hp and sanity and nightmare fuel all at the same time.

If they made wendy skill tree somewhat similar to how good the maxwell rework was, then wendy wouldn't have these problems where you have to force players to join fights and buffed abi being able to SOLO bosses with wendy not even touching anything.

Yes, a fight where Wendy is kiting and Abby is just there doing 400 damage is bad design. Because gestalt Abby is not made well.

Wendy simply doing a command isn't participating, and pretty much no different than just looking while Abby fights. That's literally just a worse version of shadow prison, a skill that helps your minions but costs fuel and sanity, making you have to manage it.

Already discussed the whole clearing stuff with Abby while Wendy watches. The stronger the mob, and the better its rewards, the higher the level of participation is needed.

I get the type of playstyle that you want, but it's not the playstyle of Wendy

I suggest Webber. He doesn't have to summon spiders after obtaining them. He can just stand there while they tear every enemy and horde, even better than Abi. The spiders are good against bosses. Webber just needs to plan the type of spiders he has, get them, and know when to use the webby whistle 

[Swiyss]

9 minutes ago, Debruh said:

es, a fight where Wendy is kiting and Abby is just there doing 400 damage is bad design. Because gestalt Abby is not made well.

Wendy simply doing a command isn't participating, and pretty much no different than just looking while Abby fights. That's literally just a worse version of shadow prison, a skill that helps your minions but costs fuel and sanity, making you have to manage it.

My problem is that if the fix for this is to force wendy to go and punch the enemy then it will ruin the character. Instead, the fix should be to make abi be able to solo bosses but wendy has to constantly use commands so that abi can dodge things. Like, instead of abi automatically doing the gestalt dodge attack, we add a button that wendy players will press to make abi dodge. Smart good players will be able to kite the boss while also control abigail dodge command so that she can avoid damage. Simply adding planar defense to her and making her health doubles is the most boring and unintuitive and lazy way of fixing the issue of her dying too quickly. They can do the same for shadow, they can literally make the murder action instant throught a command to either damage things OR shield herself to dodge a percentage of the damage. Literally make we choose what to do with the soul of the critter, either use it to dodge an attack or deal more damage.

It's not that hard to do and it is way more interactive, fun and enjoying for the player.

@Jason

[Grove]

10 minutes ago, Swiyss said:

My problem is that if the fix for this is to force wendy to go and punch the enemy then it will ruin the character. Instead, the fix should be to make abi be able to solo bosses but wendy has to constantly use commands so that abi can dodge things. Like, instead of abi automatically doing the gestalt dodge attack, we add a button that wendy players will press to make abi dodge. Smart good players will be able to kite the boss while also control abigail dodge command so that she can avoid damage. Simply adding planar defense to her and making her health doubles is the most boring and unintuitive and lazy way of fixing the issue of her dying too quickly. They can do the same for shadow, they can literally make the murder action instant throught a command to either damage things OR shield herself to dodge a percentage of the damage. Literally make we choose what to do with the soul of the critter, either use it to dodge an attack or deal more damage.

It's not that hard to do and it is way more interactive, fun and enjoying for the player.

@Jason

I don't think Wendy should be forced to punch every enemy, but bosses should definitely require it.

Every boss except the two beargers can already be done with Abby, but I do agree that adding commands would be nice (dash command definitely needs to be worked on though)

And that good players should be able to kite, use Abby's behavior durong soothe or rile up, and commands to be able to dodge pretty much everything with Abby.

The critter idea is pretty nice too.

I really only disagree on the idea that Abby can solo bosses on her own. The current commands are far too simple, and so is applying elixirs. But stuff like the critter idea you suggested, more precise timing when it comes to controls, etc would be enough engagement. Though, boss fights should take longer, since you're not gathering resources for the fight and not risking your own health. Just risking Abby, which can be summon instantly anyway.

But gestalt Abby does not have that level of engagement yet, so your first comment stating that gestalt Abby is fine is prettu wacky 

[Swiyss]

2 minutes ago, Debruh said:

But gestalt Abby does not have that level of engagement yet, so your first comment stating that gestalt Abby is fine is prettu wacky 

It is not balanced, sure. But the fix to force wendy to punch is not a great fix either. Yeah basically the issue runs way deeper. They should just add a dodge+attack command for gestalt abi and 2 commands for shadow abi, Dodge command and Attack command. And make so both cost a critter, would also be great to add a simpler way to collect these critters.

[HowlVoid]

3 hours ago, Swiyss said:

Please for the love of god do not ruin the character by forcing me to join the fight. 

I'm glad you commented, this is exactly the issue I'd like to avoid.

Prime example why this form of interaction is unhealthy for the game.

Secondly, you have completely and totally avoided the fact that all the examples you mentioned have a cost and upkeep. All Wendy would have to do is craft a boomerang to accomplish the same effect, except now there is an upkeep cost for Wendy to do "nothing". Honestly my idea does very little to change current affairs so hopefully the devs come up with something more engaging, i only tackle the upkeep part, and it's minimal.

Finally, how do you "ruin" a character by changing something that's new to it lol. So Wendy has been "ruined" this whole time? 

You're just having a knee jerk reaction. You claim things like "creativity" but you just want to enjoy what many summoners have in other games, and extreme form of power fantasy. I play predominantly summoners in any and every game that has them, you want to sit back and let the summons do your bidding while you sit back feeling overwhelmingly powerful. Wendy doesn't even fit that trope, and don't starve doesn't need that kind of gameplay.

Maxwell is overturned btw, everyone knows he needs to be toned down. And his minions cost fuel, and if he gets too far they take a massive dps penalty. All things not present in current G. Abigail.

[djturner]

2 hours ago, Swiyss said:

what the f are you talking about, wendy deals LESS DMG unless abi is attacking.

And even if the devs intended for wendy to be forced to join the fight like you mentioned, that's already a bad thing in my opinion, we should promote creativity and balance it out.

abi+wendy = stronger
abi solo = weak
wendy solo = weaker

Don't you understand that I enjoy having to fight longer even if it's weaker just so that I can do it without wendy interacting? It's the idea that counts for me. I could give less care if wendy + abi is stronger when I can do Abi alone while wendy helps.

I'm talking about game design. The design of Wendy/Abigail is to fight in tandem. That's the point of Vex allowing Wendy to overcome her .75 multiplier; it incentivizes the player to fight alongside Abigail, not leave her dismissed or leave her alone (as w/ Vex, Wendy ends up dealing ~15% more than normal). If you have a character who drastically underperforms when fighting without her sister, and actually overperforms when fighting alongside her, it seems pretty clear that the design intent of that mechanic is for the sisters to fight together. Characters have strengths and the expectation is that the player plays into them.

I completely understand that you're saying you enjoy a more passive experience even if it takes longer. But that's not Wendy, and not only has it never been, but she's been intentionally designed to be not that forever now. As Debruh has been saying, I'd recommend other characters if that's what you're after.

[OMEGASCRUFF]

2 hours ago, Swiyss said:

what the f are you talking about, wendy deals LESS DMG unless abi is attacking.

And even if the devs intended for wendy to be forced to join the fight like you mentioned, that's already a bad thing in my opinion, we should promote creativity and balance it out.

abi+wendy = stronger
abi solo = weak
wendy solo = weaker

Don't you understand that I enjoy having to fight longer even if it's weaker just so that I can do it without wendy interacting? It's the idea that counts for me. I could give less care if wendy + abi is stronger when I can do Abi alone while wendy helps.

then.why.cant.it.be.if.it.promotes.a.different.creative.playstyle.

While I don't love your confrontational attitude in your messages here, I do think you actually have a very valid point, and it happens to be a conclusion I came to with Walter as well. It's a classic case of "¿porque no los dos?" ...Why not both play styles?

I think, objectively, it's better for the developers to provide significantly more reward, skill expression, or savings on costs to engage directly with their intended play style. But at the end of the day, I don't actually want Walter to completely lose his safe, ranged, campy combat. In fact, I want it to become stronger but more fun (mostly due to its redundancy with existing ranged options.) Wendy is exactly the same, and it occurred to me while I was watching a video of Abigail soloing a bunch of bosses with very little input.

However, I think that's where the problem lies with Lunar Abigail. She doesn't require much input to manage as it stands, and the cost to maintain her is fairly trivial. If Lunar Abigail exists to specifically provide a puppet master play style, it just really needs to be more carefully refined in its gameplay or its upkeep, or there has to be more risk involved to the player. There probably should still be some mastery needed to execute this, especially on more challenging enemies. It's either that, or it starts requiring more setup and costs to do things this way.

As it stands, we don't have a strong foundation to address these issues, with optimal inputs just being repeated use of the attack at command, and simply forcing more potion usage is a mediocre way to increase the cost. If perhaps the former could be improved by forcing the player to at least make Abigail dodge with good timing and positioning, things might be a little bit different. She probably shouldn't be doing most of the work autonomously, as she does now. I wanted it before, but I think a block command would be really justified as well to complement this when on cool down, and it can have the bonus of doing a little extra damage through damage reflecting, even if not full damage immunity. The attack at command will probably need to be overhauled, though, because it seems to do a too much in one command, especially when combined with Lunar Abigail's automatic invulnerability.

But if Lunar Abigail is specifically designed to do all this and play this way, I think it might be a good idea to re-evaluate her damage, unfortunately. She still kills things pretty quickly, and time is a very important currency that we can choose to spend. The other option is that she should have an upkeep cost like Shadow Abigail does (through murder.)

I don't really know. I'm not gonna lie, this is not the type of game play I'm particularly experienced with other than a history with Maxwell. And we all know he's a terrible role model for anyone, and a poor benchmark for balancing. But I think it would be responsible for us to keep the discussion more open-minded rather than jumping on the "nerf it to the ground" train instinctively. I'm just a bit worried there won't be enough time to fully polish this, and I'd have to hope that the devs are already on top of this exact approach. I actually like the idea of drastically different play styles between Lunar and Shadow affinities. But what we have right now needs some major work to make it fun, skillful, or potentially straight up cost more in exchange. And probably take longer, too.

I think Shadow Abigail should stay on a bit more on the original style of promoted hands-on gameplay, though. It's already built into her damage modifiers (which definitely needs to be addressed), so it's clearly the intent, but I feel like we still need to do something more about base form and Shadow Abigail's poor bulk, and the flower's UX may honestly not be good enough to really handle the problems with either play style, but I don't think I've seen too much feedback about it either.