Different devs, different game philosophy. But why is there also a difference in development/effort?

[_mylilsunshine_]

In recent Klei's dev stream, V2C and Jason revealed that different sets of developers work on different characters, like how V2C is more familiar with Walter, Jason with Wendy, and neither with Wortox in the demonstration stream. This explains how the devs approach character changes/skill trees differently from each other. Yet the most obvious and discrepant thing that isn't explained is: why are Walter's changes so, so much less developed than the other characters? Are there less resources spent on Walter?

It wasn't until the 3rd build (644439) that he finally got the two alignment rounds + horror round, and Thulecite frame enhance magic round (were not implemented). Yet some, or most of Wendy & Wortox's skills were ready from the get-go. They were implemented; still subject to change, but they were online. Wendy & Wortox seems to have been developed since the pre-beta and beta, and currently receiving a lot of attention/changes. Again, different devs working on different characters, very understandable.

Walter had to wait until the 03 out of 04 beta builds for him to be online, and even then, some might argue that the current direction of Walter's tree is rather uncreative, fails to address most of his problems, and does not reflect his personality/lore. The first two beta builds (642838 and 643115) didn't change much about Walter either, compared to the other two characters.

Walter is currently waiting for these items in the next beta build, which is supposedly the final build before the holiday:

Quote

• Other things that didn’t make it into this build:
  • Slingshot Handles rebalancing
  • Using Slingshot Field Kit while mounted
  • Woby stuff

Which is pretty much 2/3 of his skill tree. Will there be enough time and resources left to change/fix whatever is implemented in the final build, before Walter's tree is official?

The devs said that there are too few Walter players to receive cohesive feedback. We'll give you the voices you need, but that doesn't explain why the tree was so uninspiring and barebone in the first place.

[arubaro]

They also said that range damage is problematic and that thry don't have much feedback of walter for being as played as wes

[Steorra]

I don't think it is less resources for some particular character, what behind it is more like lack of creativity, Or even worse - if you say something about this it may cause some accusation like "you are attacking our dear designers" to you.

I have to say that I prefer to exchange current Wendy skill tree designer with Wortox one, but there may have a more harmlessly way - to let all designer to exchange their opinions and ideas for all three character.

And I believe that the words above already triggered some people, sadly.

[Dingle]

I think it's simply that Walter had a really troublesome design in the first place. Giving him a ranged weapon, with ammo upgrades mostly focusing on damage, was likely a big mistake in hindsight.

Without having the problem of making ranged damage interesting and balanced, they could have focused on any number of other facets of his mishmash design. He could have been the nomadic boy scout/wilderness character. Or they could have leaned hard into making Woby really interesting. Or a mix of both.

But no, I imagine most of their time is spent trying to make the slingshot interesting. If they could have done it over, I would have liked the slingshot to mostly be for debuff support, not damage. It's easier to design for, they could have thought up a bunch of different effects for solo and team play. If they try that now, the debuffs have to compete with the effective but really boring icker+cursed rounds combo.

[Echsrick]

maybe he would have gotten more care put into it if we removed wendy from this skill trees line up given how much more wendys are out there vs walter and wortox combined, like putting the most favourit character with the least favourit character at once i think was a mistake

[kroban]

1 hour ago, _mylilsunshine_ said:

Yet the most obvious and discrepant thing that isn't explained is: why are Walter's changes so, so much less developed than the other characters? Are there less resources spent on Walter?

Well I hate to be that guy, but Wendy is clearly sucking up all the skill tree juice, Wendy basically had her skill tree done when beta first released, but then everyone started acting like crybabies on Wendy needing this or that and all that **** and she basically got half the skill tree redone. Which is fair but, people are still crying about her and she keeps getting all the attention, while really few are talking about Walter and Wortox, who clearly need a bit more attention now.

Wendy should have been put in the 2 characters skill tree, maybe Wendy and Willow would have worked way better.

[Mysterious box]

58 minutes ago, arubaro said:

They also said that range damage is problematic and that thry don't have much feedback of walter for being as played as wes

That still doesn't really explain the state of Woby who 3 updates in has really only had 1 tweak and isn't tied to range combat directly.

 

3 minutes ago, kroban said:

Well I hate to be that guy, but Wendy is clearly sucking up all the skill tree juice, Walter (and Wortox) had their skill tree more developed than Wendy when the beta first released,

This is false a large portion of Walter's tree wasn't even active.

[kroban]

3 minutes ago, Mysterious box said:

This is false a large portion of Walter's tree wasn't even active.

Yeah true I got it wrong, Wendy pretty much had all her skill tree done while Walter had no rift ammo + Woby branch was raw

[Steorra]

5 minutes ago, kroban said:

Well I hate to be that guy, but Wendy is clearly sucking up all the skill tree juice, Wendy basically had her skill tree done when beta first released, but then everyone started acting like crybabies on Wendy needing this or that and all that **** and she basically got half the skill tree redone. Which is fair but, people are still crying about her and she keeps getting all the attention, while really few are talking about Walter and Wortox, who clearly need a bit more attention now.

Wendy should have been put in the 2 characters skill tree, maybe Wendy and Willow would have worked way better.

Sorry? Devs has said that three characters has three developers for their own and the work is possessing parallelled, so the current beta developing should not be a zero sum game due to the stream right?

[Mysterious box]

1 minute ago, kroban said:

Yeah true I got it wrong, Wendy pretty much had all her skill tree done while Walter had no rift ammo + Woby branch was raw

The thulecite frame also wasn't properly implemented until last friday though they did give a early game version of the scrappy frame so it's not like they haven't been listening to be fair I think they just don't know what to do with Walter rather than a lack of care.

[Steorra]

1 minute ago, kroban said:

Yeah true I got it wrong, Wendy pretty much had all her skill tree done while Walter had no rift ammo + Woby branch was raw

Guess you should go blame V2C who seems mainly to take on the responsibility for Walter skills design, but not Wendy or Jason (who mainly for Wendy skilltree design), and to blame Wendy players is more hard to understand.

[Mysterious box]

7 minutes ago, Fitzee said:

Again, people are just looking for a scapegoat to complain about. 

I don't think it's wrong for people to be a bit frustrated when it feels like not much has changed nearly two weeks into the beta except for one character specifically when 2 to 3 weeks is usually the maximum time these betas last this is just being unnecessarily confrontational.

[kroban]

On 12/3/2024 at 2:02 PM, Steorra said:

Guess you should go blame V2C who seems mainly to take on the responsibility for Walter skills design, but not Wendy or Jason (who mainly for Wendy skilltree design), and to blame Wendy players is more hard to understand.

I blame Wendy posters* for complaining so much even right now after she got half the skill tree redone, devs arent at blame, they most likely have x amount of resourcers to dedicate to skill trees and of course they had to dedicate all to Wendy if half the forum got ran over by crybabies insulting them

[Mysterious box]

6 minutes ago, Steorra said:

Guess you should go blame V2C who seems mainly to take on the responsibility for Walter skills design, but not Wendy or Jason (who mainly for Wendy skilltree design), and to blame Wendy players is more hard to understand.

Also please don't direct people to attack the devs if people want to vent that's fine but let's not directly start holding specific devs responsible.

[Mysterious box]

Just now, Fitzee said:

Frustration doesn't justify blaming others.

True

[Steorra]

1 minute ago, Mysterious box said:

Also please don't direct people to attack the devs if people want to vent that's fine but let's not directly start holding specific devs responsible.

Hmm? Wasn't that just have clarified by devs their own? Are you hint that I should not speak the truth what devs has clarified due to the stream, or are you just think that if there are some ppls have something to complain, to let them find a randomly scapegoat from other players is acceptable, but to tell them who is really take responsibility for their problem is a simply taboo?

Thing seems weird now.

5 minutes ago, kroban said:

I blame Wendy players for crying so much even right now after she got half the skill tree redone, devs arent at blame, they most likely have x amount of resourcers to dedicate to skill trees and of course they had to dedicate all to Wendy if half the forum got ran over by crybabies insulting them

Seems more like a "If I blame it at who is really take responsibility for my issue, I would got accusation from others. Then Wendy players is one more easily target for me." Kek.

[kroban]

21 minutes ago, Steorra said:

Seems more like a "If I blame it at who is really take responsibility for my issue, I would got accusation from others. Then Wendy players is one more easily target for me." Kek.

Look at the forum and how like 95% of the most recent posts are still about Wendy saying how she still somehows needs to have half her skill tree redone again. Devs are not at fault, the community is, you want me to blame the devs but I can see that they are putting the effort in making all skill trees good, yet wendy posters are the ones that are still crying over a character that was already pretty solid pre-skill tree and is now way too good rather than saying "hey wait, let them focus on the other 2 that seem to need it way more"

[Mysterious box]

Just now, Steorra said:

Hmm? Wasn't that just have clarified by devs their own? Are you hint that I should not speak the truth what devs has clarified due to the stream, or are you just think that if there are some ppls have something to complain, to let them find a randomly scapegoat from other players is acceptable, but to tell them who is really take responsibility for their problem is a simply taboo?

Thing seems weird now.

I'm not saying anyone should be a scapegoat neither the Wendy players or the devs.

That being said it is true that the backlash definitely seemed to have shifted most of the focus to Wendy regardless of how the teams are operating in the backround how things were presented show this and how the Wendy feedback was given prior obviously didn't paint the best of pictures but again I agree people shouldn't be attacking each other over this.

[Steorra]

7 minutes ago, kroban said:

Look at the forum and how like 95% of the most recent posts are still about Wendy saying how she still somehows needs to have half her skill tree redone again. Devs are not at fault, the community is, you want me to blame the devs but I can see that they are putting the effort in making all skill trees good, yet wendy posters are the ones that are still crying over a character that was already pretty solid pre-skill tree and is now way too good rather than saying "hey wait, let them focus on the other 2 that seem to need it way more"

"the community is"

Seriously? You mean Wendy has most player base but Wendy mainly cry nothing for your favorite character like Walter Or whoever, is a fault? Wow. 

You may have to recheck you broken narcissism. 

The world won't feed your narcissism like what your parents did when you are a baby.

A truth is that Wendy have most player base. And they have no responsibility for some other character lovers' narcissism.

Another truth is there are some Wendy players give their voices to Walter And Wortox as well, but someone seems to be blind about this for some unspeakable intention.

[Peasant]

Maybe the fellow who designed Walter's skilltree is less creative than those who designed the other two.

[Steorra]

Just now, YXukun said:

Maybe the fellow who designed Walter's skilltree is less creative than those who designed the other two.

tbh Walter have basic design issue from the very beginning. The downside of damaged sanity loss is unacceptable and it against DST basic fighting logic. Walter may designed for a completely different play-style, but for current stage we could say it was failed.

Accordingly, skilltree for Walter has to fix more things before it did what other skill tree did.

[Ruperstiltskin]

3 minutes ago, YXukun said:

Maybe the fellow who designed Walter's skilltree is less creative than those who designed the other two.

Thats not an excuse is it? People have been saying amazing ideas for walter better gameplay that dont even involve the slingshot, not even just walter any character, and most of the previous skill trees that needed revisits got much ideas from the forums but walter seems to be an outlier about that at the moment its kinda sad tbh

[BalkanCockroach]

Forumites sure are rowdy these past few days.

[Dingle]

1 minute ago, Fitzee said:

And people can help this fellow by playing Walter more and provide more feedback, instead of wasting time here complaining about others. 

To be fair, the feedback is pretty hard to see. Gets buried fast.

It's getting a little better as Wendy feedback is slowing down a bit.

[Peasant]

Just now, Dingle said:

To be fair, the feedback is pretty hard to see. Gets buried fast.

True, I recall I had a post regarding an idea of stuffing other kinds of flowers into the sisturn, and there's no trace of it now.