How to Fix Blessed Sisturn III

[Lardee]

At this point everyone knows the two sides of the argument.

Those who want to keep the player tag want an Abigail that won't die in any fight.

Those who don't want the player tag want the opposite. They want an Abigail who's so easy to keep alive that Wendy gameplay becomes identical to that of Wilson or Wolfgang. While these players can choose to simply not use Blessed Sisturn III, the skill is  the dominant strategy in that there is no tradeoff for not using this skill. It is by far the best choice for anyone fighting bosses and it's not even close.

 

So here's proposal to change Blessed Sisturn III to satisfy both parties:

If Wendy decorates the sisturn with lunar flowers, Abigail gains the player tag. However, Wendy also loses her 1.4x vex bonus.

 

With this change, players who aren't skilled enough to keep Abigail alive will be able to. They don't have to fight bosses like Wes, learn the skills to keep Abigail alive or use potions or get stuck with her Gestalt form.  They'd still be able to have Abigail's AoE, still have Abigail's damage, and they'd still have the typical 10% damage increase the vex gives all players. They simply wouldn't be getting the typical 40% increase since they'd be trading that for giving Abigail 50% damage resistance against bosses.

 

On the other hand, Blessed Sisturn III would no longer be the dominant strategy. Players who are capable of keeping Abigail alive through the use of skill, potions etc would have an incentive NOT to use Blessed Sisturn III.  Or they could activate Blessed Sisturn III and only when needed.

 

In addition to this, I would add another element to Blessed Sisturn III:

If Wendy decorates the Sisturn with dark petals, Wendy's vex buff increases from 1.4 to 1.75 (25% increase). However Abigail takes 25% more damage from all sources.

This would be the opposite of the Lunar blossom's effects where instead of decreasing Abigail's risk and decreasing Abigail's reward, players would be increasing Abigail's risk and increasing her reward.  This would incentivize players to get more skilled at using Wendy as well as mastering the use of her potions and skills like Team Spirit.

 

To me, this seems like the perfect solution to everyone on every side of this argument. "Casual players" have the option to keep Abigail alive and benefit from her in every situation. "Hardcore players" have an incentive to not use the skill or even make the game even more difficult if they have what it takes to manage that risk.

[layangan putus]

@Tranoze Is there a way to work around 2 Abi for sisturn decoration in the same world?

[Koomin]

I like the idea in general, but think that adding more to the vex buff is not a good design unless the beefalo issue is fixed.  Every increase to the vex bonus is just easily abusable by sauntering around on a beefalo.  If they really want to keep it, upsides and bonuses need to not give an even higher damage multiplier, and need to give some other bonus. It is why Shadow Abigail is so ridiculous at this point and needs to be changed.

[Lardee]

1 minute ago, DST enjoyer said:

@Tranoze Is there a way to work around 2 Abi for sisturn decoration in the same world?

Yes, make it so that Wendy attunes herself to one sisturn.  Similar to how players attune themselves to one meat effigy.

1 minute ago, Koomin said:

I like the idea in general, but think that adding more to the vex buff is not a good design unless the beefalo issue is fixed.  Every increase to the vex bonus is just easily abusable by sauntering around on a beefalo.  If they really want to keep it, upsides and bonuses need to not give an even higher damage multiplier, and need to give some other bonus. It is why Shadow Abigail is so ridiculous at this point and needs to be changed.

What is the beefalo issue and why does it need fixing?

[Koomin]

Just now, Lardee said:

What is the beefalo issue and why does it need fixing?

The one where the beefalo is counted as "Wendy" for her petal bonus but not as "Wendy" for her damage reduction downside and randomly does 1.54x dmg.  I think you clearly know what I'm referring to here.

[Lardee]

2 minutes ago, Koomin said:

The one where the beefalo is counted as "Wendy" for her petal bonus but not as "Wendy" for her damage reduction downside and randomly does 1.54x dmg.  I think you clearly know what I'm referring to here.

I assumed that's what you were referring to, but what I don't know is why it's an issue. This doesn't affect Wendy's damage reduction downside anymore than it affects Wigfrid's or Wolfgang's upsides. Are characters not allowed to use methods that circumvent their downsides?

[Pig Princess]

8 minutes ago, Lardee said:

Those who want to keep the player tag want an Abigail that won't die in any fight regardless of player skill

Objection. Some people explicitly wrote that they would agree to remove blessed sisturn III if team spirit commands were more flexible and diverse (they want more control over Abigail in general and/or it being more smooth).

 

12 minutes ago, Lardee said:

If Wendy decorates the Sisturn with dark petals, Wendy's vex buff increases from 1.4 to 1.75 (25% increase).

But weren't skill trees supposed to help characters to catch up to planar stuff? I think extra planar damage dealt instead of extra % would be more in line with the idea of planar enemies, after all, the more damage you have, the less equal persentage increase actually adds because of planar entity protection.

Also I would like to mention possible alternative to blessed sisturn III that I came up with - new Team Spirit commands and some general suggestions on existing ones:

 

[Koomin]

Just now, Lardee said:

I assumed that's what you were referring to, but what I don't know is why it's an issue. Are characters not allowed ways to work around their downsides?

Her being treated as both Wendy and not Wendy is not working around her downside and makes no sense.  What player would ever think "hmm what if I ride a beefalo?  Then I would still count as Wendy while attacking but also not count as Wendy while attacking", without looking on the internet and knowing the bug exists.  There is no actual plausible explanation for the calculation except it being a bug. 

It is also not good game design to have one strategy be so objectively superior to other ones, and takes away creative decision making and problem solving in an open world game.

I'd much prefer if abusable bugs like this were removed, and the power budget added back in for stuff that people have been requesting instead of a weird corner case.

[Debruh]

1 minute ago, Pig Princess said:

But weren't skill trees supposed to help characters to catch up to planar stuff? I think extra planar damage dealt instead of extra % would be more in line with the idea of planar enemies, after all, the more damage you have, the less equal persentage increase actually adds because of planar entity protection.

I think if some kind of effect that you do on Abby is introduced, that converts her vex to another effect that adds planar damage depending on the % such as (just example numbers) 5 planar damage for other characters, increasing to 15 with Wendy due to the 40%. And increases even more if cursed vexation is applied. Then stuff like cursed vexation would be helpful all throughout the game

Could be through evil flowers in sisturn, right clicking pure horror in inventory like Wurt, upgrading the Sisturn with dark tatters or whatever

[Lardee]

Just now, Pig Princess said:

But weren't skill trees supposed to help characters to catch up to planar stuff? I think extra planar damage dealt instead of extra % would be more in line with the idea of planar enemies, after all, the more damage you have, the less equal persentage increase actually adds because of planar entity protection.

Also I would like to mention possible alternative to blessed sisturn III that I came up with - new Team Spirit commands and some general suggestions on existing ones:

I would probably keep the dark petals the same, but decrease the Shadow Abigail potion's damage buff and make it more planar aligned.  Team spirit commands being better would be great, but I think most of the people who want the player tag wouldn't change their minds regardless of how good Team Spirit gets.

[SilverSpoon]

27 minutes ago, Lardee said:

If Wendy decorates the sisturn with lunar flowers, Abigail gains the player tag. However, Wendy also loses her 1.4x vex bonus.

27 minutes ago, Lardee said:

If Wendy decorates the Sisturn with dark petals, Wendy's vex buff increases from 1.4 to 1.75 (25% increase). However Abigail takes 25% more damage from all sources.

This is both a damage fix for "solo" and "non-Gestabby" Wendy, too less reason to put anything other than lunar flowers in multiplayer or Gestabby. Vex value adjustments are required for all characters, and Abigail herself.

27 minutes ago, Lardee said:

Those who want to keep the player tag want an Abigail that won't die in any fight regardless of player skill, use of things like Team Spirit, without having to rely on potions like Spectral Cure All and Ghastly Experience and without having to use the clunky Gestalt Abigail.

Personally labeling and gaslighting people you don't like is completely unnecessary to your suggestion, it will only cause your suggestions to come across as joking or to get back at they.

[Pig Princess]

17 minutes ago, Lardee said:

If Wendy decorates the sisturn with lunar flowers, Abigail gains the player tag. However, Wendy also loses her 1.4x vex bonus.

So that means Wendy would deal 0.825% of Wilson damage + whatever damage Abigail herself deals? But then at most they would be playing Wilson and spend spectral cure-alls, and thus would be dissatisfied, wouldn't they?Moreover, there is no incentive to seek character-specific strategies, and in that regard it can easily be beginner's trap (like old farms were if one tried to rely on them as food source instead of getting small random buff from generic seed). And Wendy becomes Wilson with different set of skins. I think I remember developers wrote about character fantasy, and I might be wrong, but I think that is what they said when they rolled back glass cannon Wendy. I wonder what will they do if they see how player tag changes the game.

[Well-met]

17 minutes ago, Lardee said:

.Are characters not allowed to use methods that circumvent their downsides?

if beefalos had serious drawbacks like they once did many years ago, then it would probably be fine.

Except that is no longer the case, and people can easily rush them, keep them permanently and bring them everywhere to the point it's just an extra item equipped onto your character now.

 

[Debruh]

2 minutes ago, Well-met said:

if beefalos had serious drawbacks like they once did many years ago, then it would probably be fine.

Except that is no longer the case, and people can easily rush them, keep them permanently and bring them everywhere to the point it's just an extra item equipped onto your character now.

 

Knockback seems like a pretty good option of keeping beefalo in line

(Just ignore this: https://forums.kleientertainment.com/forums/topic/162577-knockback-problems-countered-by-mourning-glory-ii/)

[Lardee]

6 minutes ago, Koomin said:

Her being treated as both Wendy and not Wendy is not working around her downside and makes no sense.  What player would ever think "hmm what if I ride a beefalo?  Then I would still count as Wendy while attacking but also not count as Wendy while attacking", without looking on the internet and knowing the bug exists.  There is no actual plausible explanation for the calculation except it being a bug. 

How is she being treated as Wendy and not Wendy any different than any other character using a beefalo? Beefalos are treated as players when everyone else rides them. They gain electric damage when Warly eats volt goat jelly.

Figuring out how to take advantage of these types of unique interactions is what makes the game interesting.

 

6 minutes ago, Koomin said:

It is also not good game design to have one strategy be so objectively superior to other ones, and takes away creative decision making and problem solving in an open world game.

Beefalo in no way is objectively superior to other ones. They have major downsides in the early, middle game and especially late game. These unique downsides make you consider the tradeoffs when using them vs traditional melee combat. That's good game design. What's not good game design is what we have for most other characters: Void Cowl and Shadow Reaper/Shadow Maul. 

6 minutes ago, Koomin said:

I'd much prefer if abusable bugs like this were removed, and the power budget added back in for stuff that people have been requesting instead of a weird corner case.

I disagree. This particular (assumed unintentional) interaction adds considerable amounts of depth to the game and further inspires characters to make decisions that deviate from that of typical Wilson/Wolfgang gameplay.

7 minutes ago, Pig Princess said:

So that means Wendy would deal 0.825% of Wilson damage + whatever damage Abigail herself deals? But then at most they would be playing Wilson and spend spectral cure-alls, and thus would be dissatisfied, wouldn't they?Moreover, there is no incentive to seek character-specific strategies, and in that regard it can easily be beginner's trap (like old farms were if one tried to rely on them as food source instead of getting small random buff from generic seed). And Wendy becomes Wilson with different set of skins. I think I remember developers wrote about character fantasy, and I might be wrong, but I think that is what they said when they rolled back glass cannon Wendy. I wonder what will they do if they see how player tag changes the game.

No, they would still be out damaging Wilson most of the time. Let's take the Hambat for example. 59.5*0.825 = 49. Abigail's day damage would make this 56.5, dusk damage would be 61.5 and night damage would be 69. The disparity gets even larger when it comes to planar damage.

However, from what I've heard, damage was never the issue. The issue was being able to keep Abigail in the fight. And the fights that they'd need to spam spectral cure alls for are limited. And spectral cure Alls are dirt cheap.

The incentive for seeking character specific strategies would be the extra damage of regular Abigail or shadow Abigail.

[Koomin]

I'm happy to leave this here as that we disagree on this and disagree on your proposal.  We have both made our points, and I'm not particularly thrilled at the prospect of getting into more multi-page debates.

[Lardee]

15 minutes ago, Well-met said:

if beefalos had serious drawbacks like they once did many years ago, then it would probably be fine.

Except that is no longer the case, and people can easily rush them, keep them permanently and bring them everywhere to the point it's just an extra item equipped onto your character now.

 

Beefalo do have serious drawbacks, and even if they didn't I don't understand why items need to have serious drawbacks. The walking cane has no serious drawbacks. The Shadow Maul has no serious drawbacks, neither does the reaper. The magi has no serious drawbacks.

4 minutes ago, Koomin said:

I'm happy to leave this here as that we disagree on this and disagree on your proposal.  We have both made our points, and I'm not particularly thrilled at the prospect of getting into more multi-page debates.

I'm willing to continue because I find this particular topic interesting to discuss, but if you want to agree to disagree I can respect that too. 

22 minutes ago, SilverSpoon said:

This is both a damage fix for "solo" and "non-Gestabby" Wendy, too less reason to put anything other than lunar flowers in multiplayer or Gestabby. Vex value adjustments are required for all characters, and Abigail herself.

I mean, that's good game design. Giving the player the option to pick whether they want a defensive, neutral or offensive Abigail depending on the situation is what Klei should be doing. If you want to move the vex value for shadow Abigail from the one that applies to all players, that's cool too.

 

22 minutes ago, SilverSpoon said:

Personally labeling and gaslighting people you don't like is completely unnecessary to your suggestion, it will only cause your suggestions to come across as joking or to get back at they.

Huh how is this gaslighting? In the many discussions that I've had, these solutions to Abigail dying in a fight were rejected as insufficient.

[Pig Princess]

25 minutes ago, Lardee said:

The incentive for seeking character specific strategies would be the extra damage of regular Abigail or shadow Abigail.

What I meant is that even if there is better alternative in general, the local maximum would incentivise player to stay there. I mean that instead of learning curve that goes gradually up in reward there would be a situation like "bad-ok-not so good-great". But I suppose this problem pales in comparison to what we have now, so sorry for nitpicking. Still, it would be great of there was no reason to choose lesser evil.

[Well-met]

25 minutes ago, Lardee said:

Beefalo do have serious drawbacks, and even if they didn't I don't understand why items need to have serious drawbacks.

well then why make this thread if you don't believe in balance?

[SilverSpoon]

31 minutes ago, Lardee said:

I mean, that's good game design. Giving the player the option to pick whether they want a defensive, neutral or offensive Abigail depending on the situation is what Klei should be doing. If you want to move the vex value for shadow Abigail from the one that applies to all players, that's cool too.

Still I feel it need Vex value adjustments are required for all attacker, I feel like those options is easy, normal or hard Abigail depending when not solo-neutral Abigail

31 minutes ago, Lardee said:

Huh how is this gaslighting?

1 hour ago, Lardee said:

Those who want to keep the player tag want an Abigail that won't die in any fight regardless of player skill, use of things like Team Spirit, without having to rely on potions like Spectral Cure All and Ghastly Experience and without having to use the clunky Gestalt Abigail.

How is this anything other than gaslighting...? I want to keep the player tag for Abigail, but I don't want an Abigail that won't die in any fight, I don't recall you investigating me about it, nor do I recall making such a statement.

[SilverSpoon]

3 minutes ago, Well-met said:

well then why make this thread if you don't believe in balance?

1 hour ago, Lardee said:

Those who want to keep the player tag want an Abigail that won't die in any fight regardless of player skill, use of things like Team Spirit, without having to rely on potions like Spectral Cure All and Ghastly Experience and without having to use the clunky Gestalt Abigail.

[Lardee]

Just now, Well-met said:

well then why make this thread if you don't believe in balance?

To propose a solution that would (hopefully) give both sides of the argument what they want.

But seriously, try fighting Armored Bearger or Scrappy Werepig on a Beefalo. One hit = your beefalo is as good as dead.

[DVGMedia]

why mess with all this stuff about vex duration and player tags.

I want lunar abby to be more defenseive but not Gestalt.  Because gestalt really is just not good to play with.

Just make the third skill what the sisturn already does  which is giving abigail levels.
 

[Well-met]

7 minutes ago, Lardee said:

To propose a solution that would (hopefully) give both sides of the argument what they want.

But seriously, try fighting Armored Bearger or Scrappy Werepig on a Beefalo.

these two bosses are just about 0.01% of the game. What's the purpose of cherry-picks like this?

7 minutes ago, Lardee said:

One hit = your beefalo is as good as dead.

if only klei added an item that forever revives your beefalo for free.

on the off-chance that you aren't rollbacking anyway.

 

[Lardee]

2 minutes ago, SilverSpoon said:

Still I feel it need Vex value adjustments are required for all attacker, I feel like it is easy, normal or hard Abigail depending without solo-neutral Abigail

I'm saying that I'm on board with this for Shadow Abigail.  Instead of 1.75x1.1, you could make it 1.4x1.375.

2 minutes ago, SilverSpoon said:

How is this anything other than gaslighting...? I want to keep the player tag for Abigail, but I don't want an Abigail that won't die in any fight, I don't recall you investigating me about it, nor do I recall making such a statement.

If you're okay with Abigail sometimes dying in fights, then I apologize. I didn't mean to gaslight. I was making a general statement about what I understood what most people wanted which was Abigail to always be with Wendy.

1 minute ago, Well-met said:

these two bosses are just about 0.01% of the game. What's the purpose of cherry-picks like this?

Those were examples I brought up to illustrate a point. Do you want me to actually list all the downside of Beefalo? And before that please answer this question: should every item in the game have a downside?

 

1 minute ago, Well-met said:

if only klei added an item that forever revives your beefalo for free.

#1 it has like a 15 day cooldown which is basically the amount of time it takes to tame another beefalo with the brush.

#2 that's a super expensive late-game item.

#3 I opposed this change.

15 minutes ago, DVGMedia said:

why mess with all this stuff about vex duration and player tags.

I want lunar abby to be more defenseive but not Gestalt.  Because gestalt really is just not good to play with.

Just make the third skill what the sisturn already does  which is giving abigail levels.
 

Not vex duration. Vex damage multiplier. And it's to give the player a low risk, low reward option, medium risk, medium reward option and high risk, high reward option.

I'd be fine if lunar petal Aby got extra health and dark petal Aby got extra damage, but I'm not sure that would satisfy these guys.