[Game Update] - 646982

[Reiko24]

Every time someone comments on this thread and bumps it up it tricks me into thinking there was an update and I immediately feel let down 

[Echsrick]

35 minutes ago, OMEGASCRUFF said:

Let me know the last time you caught and held onto 180 bees in your inventory,

actualy i never dit do that ever, i got the passive fish farm instead, wich i take a couple of them with me if i want to teleport to the moon or other long distances to get some of the souls back

[OMEGASCRUFF]

10 minutes ago, Echsrick said:

actualy i never dit do that ever, i got the passive fish farm instead, wich i take a couple of them with me if i want to teleport to the moon or other long distances to get some of the souls back

I was being flippant. Nobody held onto 180 bees and mashed Soul abilities, without any desire to conserve. Things have changed.

[Echsrick]

2 minutes ago, OMEGASCRUFF said:

I was being flippant. Nobody held onto 180 bees and mashed Soul abilities, without any desire to conserve. Things have changed.

only time i got bees and butterflys was for bee box and flower planting

[crushcircuit]

1 hour ago, OMEGASCRUFF said:

I did, immediately. Didn't matter, and it is what it is at this point.

Also I carry 200, not 100. Yippee!

Oh, stop. It's not the same time investment, resource management, or ease of access, and you know it. I'm so exhausted of hearing this. Wortox's meta has clearly changed immensely with the Soul Jar, which is easily observable when playing the beta, especially in groups. He doesn't have to play conservatively anymore. Souls are individually much more meaningless in cost. Let me know the last time you caught and held onto 180 bees in your inventory, and how long it took to get those compared to now, or how you could somehow directly convert excess Souls into bees as storage.

i still agree with this post immensely. i was considering making a larger post about soul jars, because them ever being introduced as a solution means they cant simply just remove it, but as somebody who doesn't particularly want to hoard souls like that i wanted to suggest maybe splitting the higher soul max and soul jars so that they aren't the "end all be all" solution to wanting to carry more souls at a time.

i know it has its uses for people but it is incredibly overkill (and i find the current implementation a bit clunky as well, as somebody who already has issues with inventory management)

[Bumber64]

1 hour ago, OMEGASCRUFF said:

Wortox's meta has clearly changed immensely with the Soul Jar, which is easily observable when playing the beta, especially in groups.

To the extent of Winona being able to move her catapults. It's not quite on par with precision strike on top of that (or the fact that she can teleport now).

[OMEGASCRUFF]

5 minutes ago, Bumber64 said:

To the extent of Winona being able to move her catapults. It's not quite on par with precision strike on top of that (or the fact that she can teleport now).

This might be one of the strangest comparisons I've seen on these forums this whole beta.

[Bumber64]

7 hours ago, OMEGASCRUFF said:

This might be one of the strangest comparisons I've seen on these forums this whole beta.

Is it?

Portable catapults let you avoid wasting resources on redundant structures. Soul jar lets you avoid wasting resources on gathering and storing murderables.

Precision strike improves Winona's AoE and tree harvesting. Wortox's AoEs improve his soul gathering, but trawler method already existed and the AoE damage is low.

Twintail heart lets you teleport friends, but lazy deserter existed. Winona can teleport herself (+lazy deserter for friends), which she couldn't at all before.

Knabsack? W.I.N.bot and a weapon farmed by catapults. Affinities are clearly outclassed by Winona's.

Wortox actually gained very little from his skill tree in comparison to Winona. (IMO, they were approximately equal in strength before their trees. Souls and structures are analogous in utility.)

Bottom line, the power of soul jar is a bit oversold, even if it's by far the best thing he got. He didn't gain much utility in what he can do with his souls, so not needing to carry murderables is only as good as moving catapults around. Soul hop easier, catapult easier.

Edited January 12, 2025 by Bumber64

[Dingle]

16 minutes ago, Bumber64 said:

Is it?

Portable catapults let you avoid wasting resources on redundant structures. Soul jar lets you avoid wasting a bunch of resources on gathering and storing butterflies.

Precision strike improves Winona's AoE and tree harvesting. Wortox's AoEs improve his soul gathering, but trawler method already existed and the AoE damage is low.

Twintail heart lets you teleport friends, but lazy deserter existed. Winona can teleport herself (+lazy deserter for friends), which she couldn't at all before.

Knabsack? W.I.N.bot and a weapon farmed by catapults.

Wortox actually gained very little from his skill tree in comparison to Winona. (IMO, they were approximately equal in strength before their trees. Souls and structures are analogous in utility.)

Bottom line, the power of soul jar is a bit oversold, even if it's by far the best thing he got. He didn't gain much utility in what he can do with his souls, so it's only as good as moving catapults around.

Do you have a good example of that old trawler method? Picture, video, youtube link etc

Was curious. Saw one from Echsrick and know the concept, but havent seen one with tons of actual yield.

[Bumber64]

10 minutes ago, Dingle said:

Do you have a good example of that old trawler method? Picture, video, youtube link etc

Was curious. Saw one from Echsrick and know the concept, but havent seen one with tons of actual yield.

No, I haven't used it personally.

[OMEGASCRUFF]

56 minutes ago, Bumber64 said:

Bottom line, the power of soul jar is a bit oversold, even if it's by far the best thing he got. He didn't gain much utility in what he can do with his souls, so not needing to carry murderables is only as good as moving catapults around. Soul hop easier, catapult easier.

I'm very skeptical you're even playing Wortox in the beta with a post like this.

[Bumber64]

1 hour ago, OMEGASCRUFF said:

I'm very skeptical you're even playing Wortox in the beta with a post like this.

What else did he gain?

Soul Pierce helps with AFW, but BQ requires good killer bee RNG. (Resistance causes low DPS on the bosses themselves.) Not practical on any other boss.

Decoy is the better AoE. Doesn't work on echoes, so anti-synergy with reverb. (Need to open soul jar to cancel echo.) Distracts mobs, which does come in handy. Good enough to replace pierce for farming souls.

Lunar affinity acts like bone armor. Hopping already gives you some i-frames, but extra time to attack isn't bad, sure. Shadow affinity is pretty bad, though. Unimpressive damage (1 extra swing or AoE) to waste an echo, mandatory weapon that pushes you away from CC crown. Lunar ends up with the better DPS using crown.

Soul Bastion is just garbage. Cloudy Carmine too. There are skills that are just numbers, required for other skills.

The pan flute inspiration skill received improvements, making it decent. (Wortox is most capable of anyone in getting decon staff early, however.)

Twintail as healing (i.e., solo play) is overshadowed by soul jar. Don't know much about multiplayer because I only solo, but it seems like a LGA or desert stone that spoils.

Greed is a bonus on top of jars, gives more wiggle room for overloading. Free souls from flute is another small thing.

Reverb is the indispensable nice skill to naughty's soul jar. Capricious is great (though scaling with map discovery makes Winona and Wanda competitors by that point), just respec for it later.

Some people like naughty inclination for hunger, but I'm loathe to give up instant sanity control (e.g., for AFW and CC crown). Nice seems good, though I was unable to get it with the builds I used. (Might be able to now with the most recent change and giving up soul pierce.)

Anything else I missed? (Edit: Besides the fact that soul jars require bottles? A bit of a limiter at the start.)

Edited January 12, 2025 by Bumber64

[Echsrick]

2 hours ago, Dingle said:

but havent seen one with tons of actual yield.

what you mean not tons of yield? i got tin fishin bins filled, i may even need a fourth one

[Dingle]

40 minutes ago, Echsrick said:

what you mean not tons of yield? i got tin fishin bins filled, i may even need a fourth one

I thought you said it didn't get many fish per day, and you had to be in the base for it to work.

[OMEGASCRUFF]

30 minutes ago, Bumber64 said:

What else did he gain?

Soul Pierce helps with AFW, but BQ requires good killer bee RNG. (Resistance causes low DPS on the bosses themselves.) Not practical on any other boss.

Decoy is the better AoE. Doesn't work on echoes, so anti-synergy with reverb. (Need to open soul jar to cancel echo.) Distracts mobs, which does come in handy. Good enough to replace pierce for farming souls.

Lunar affinity acts like bone armor. Hopping already gives you some i-frames, but extra time to attack isn't bad, sure. Shadow affinity is pretty bad, though. Unimpressive damage (1 extra swing or AoE) to waste an echo, mandatory weapon that pushes you away from CC crown. Lunar ends up with the better DPS using crown.

Soul Bastion is just garbage. Cloudy Carmine too. There are skills that are just numbers, required for other skills.

The pan flute inspiration skill received improvements, making it decent. (Wortox is most capable of anyone in getting decon staff early, however.)

Twintail as healing (i.e., solo play) is overshadowed by soul jar. Don't know much about multiplayer because I only solo, but it seems like a LGA or desert stone that spoils.

Greed is a bonus on top of jars, gives more wiggle room for overloading. Free souls from flute is another small thing.

Reverb is the indispensable nice skill to naughty's soul jar. Capricious is great (though scaling with map discovery makes Winona and Wanda competitors by that point), just respec for it later.

Some people like naughty inclination for hunger, but I'm loathe to give up instant sanity control (e.g., for AFW and CC crown). Nice seems good, though I was unable to get it with the builds I used. (Might be able to now with the most recent change and giving up soul pierce.)

Anything else I missed? (Edit: Besides the fact that soul jars require bottles? A bit of a limiter at the start.)

I find it odd you didn't just say "no, I've been playing a lot" or something, but this is a pretty good summary of the situation, admittedly.

But it's not about what he gained. Ultimately it's about the freedom Soul Jars provided. I hate to say it, because I too want to be able to compare numbers and directly comparable qualities whenever I can, but this really is an observation/vibes based thing. The core functionality of Souls, without the skill tree, already covers all 3 stats, travel (both short and long distances), and dodging. These aspects being completely released from their limitations in cost and accessibility is enough to entirely change the game for this character. They're all critical to every single aspect of gameplay. Hell, the only times I've died so far during the beta on Wortox are when I'm trying to save a teammate from their own poor passive choices and neglect, and failed. He's INSANELY powerful now, primarily due to the limitations of his core features being removed, and whether or not that's fun, interesting, a good thing, or balanced is subjective. But there's just a huge difference between having to actively consider your Soul stock as you did before, and almost entirely ignoring in favor of maximizing productivity as you can do now.

I don't really think there's a completely comparable feature on any other character or any existing skill trees. Souls just touch so many crucial, omnipresent aspects of the game by default, that I don't think there's anything else that can compare in a truly honest way. But ultimately, I'm also not really sure comparisons to other features and characters is even particularly valuable for meaningful discussion, other than for the sake of setting precedents. I think it would be more valuable when considering characters like Webber and Wurt, or Wickerbottom and Maxwell, who have some notable overlap in their functionalities as characters, or something easily quantifiable like DPS benchmarks. But I don't think Wortox has any real overlap with anyone else other than Wanda in some ways, who ultimately still does not provide the same level of team support that he does, and her features are not directly determined by a currency the same way as Wortox either, nor are they as flexible. It's a little deeper than just long-distance transport, to begin with, because Wortox now has the freedom to do whatever he wants with on-screen Soul Hopping too. He's the fastest character at everything but DPS and farming certain resources (which often has workarounds), at this point, and his DPS is very acceptable now too. He's also the hardest to kill in the cast, which has always been the case, but it's really gotta take some major mistakes to die at this point if you're experienced with him.

Take away the effectively unlimited nature of the Soul Jar, and this is all gone. He won't be mashing teleports without regrets or any time loss anymore. That's really all there is to it.

I still think he's fun, don't get me wrong. But it's night and day how freely he plays now compared to before. I feel like a god, sometimes. I'm not sure about how it feels in super long-term solo worlds, where personal DPS matters quite a lot more and time is less of an important factor, but it's especially noticeable in group play, for sure, even more so during core game progression when his team contributions are at peak value.

[MarsLombax]

On 10.01.2025 at 20:08, Echsrick said:

потому что это не ново, вы всегда можете поймать бабочек и убить их всех позже, чтобы получить мгновенные души, банка душ - это буквально то же самое, бабочки, которые уже мертвы внутри банки, и вы даже не можете использовать эти души, пока они находятся внутри банки, вам нужно сначала вручную удалить их

It's not the same thing at all. Catching 20 unfortunate butterflies for several days or getting 100 souls in a couple of seconds are two different things.

[Dingle]

9 hours ago, OMEGASCRUFF said:

 core functionality of Souls, without the skill tree, already covers all 3 stats, travel (both short and long distances), and dodging.

I don't really think there's a completely comparable feature on any other character or any existing skill trees. Souls just touch so many crucial, omnipresent aspects of the game by default, that I don't think there's anything else that can compare in a truly honest way.

Willow seems closest, with her embers.

Doesn't cover health or travel. Arguably covers hunger due to sheer farming power. Dodging is replaced with enemy panic, and very strong ranged dps, especially if you go shadow flame.

For what you lose in comparison, you get heat anywhere, light, and a powerful sanity station, all from her knockoff dwarf star.