Character Weaknesses Are Important (Yet Another Wendy-Related Post)

[SpiderSister]

Don't Starve Together has 18 different characters. Probably the simplest of these characters is Wilson.

Wilson doesn't have any extraordinary abilities. He grows a beard which can help staying warm, and has a skill tree, that while certainly useful, doesn't generally help Wilson fight enemies or gather more resources. In this way, which agrees with his general image, Wilson is sort of the default Don't Starve Together character, around which other characters can be designed. And there are 17 of them.

But Wilson doesn't have grandiose advantages. He doesn't have any special weapons or items. He doesn't have above-average stats or abilities that help him gather resources. He doesn't have special followers. These are things other characters have. But at what cost?

Wormwood doesn't heal from food. The main way of healing in the game. Doesnt work. And look at all the food he can get. Potatoes, Tomatoes, Dragon Fruits. Berries. Leafy Meat. Butterflies? Don't run from you. Bees? Don't attack you. And you tell me he cannot heal from food?

It's the best part of the character. It makes him different. He needs to utilize alternative or less commonly used ways for healing. It makes more different than other characters than any skill he could get. A skill isn't relevant every second of the game, and a skill doesn't force you to play differently than how you'd play Wilson.

A different food-related downside is given to Wortox. He gains half the stats from food. In a game called Dont Starve (Together). And it's great. It gives Wortox players decisions. Without this disadvantage, they could use all the souls they want to hop across the map, without having nearly as much reason to use them otherwise.

But because it is otherwise difficult for him to increase his health, Wortox is incentivized to eat souls (he is Soul-Starved after all), and because it is difficult for him to otherwise heal his health and sanity, he is encouraged to drop souls for healing. This makes him a better character that has to make decisions regarding how he wants to use his character-specific resources.

Wortox also has to gather souls for that. This means he has to be around creatures dying. In a game clearly about farming. Even if it means most players will just fight bees or spiders for souls, this gives Wortox a need that distinguishes him from most other characters, and all for the better.

Webber can befriend spiders. Hordes of spiders. These spiders can be a huge combat advantage. This comes with a much lower maximum sanity value than that of Wilson, but also with Webber not only being a spider, but also a monster.

Webber cannot befriend pigs or bunnymen, and they will in fact attack him. This also makes Webber worse than Wilson for resource gathering, for Wilson can befriend pigs that would help him chop trees and mine boulders. What Webber can befriend are spiders.

While spiders don't chop trees, they are very proficient at fighting, and eating. Spiders can easily defeat any non-boss creature in the game. Enough spiders, that is. But they also eat much of the relevant loot from such creatures, with meat and pig skin both being important loot from mobs. They also require befriending, take time to amass, lose loyalship when moving between shards (without carrying them), and cannot be revived if they die. Many bosses can also scare spiders, throwing them into discord, or do significant damage in an area, killing spiders despite the nurses' best efforts.

While spiders dying can be mitigated by having nurse spiders, this doesn't solve the other issues with Webber's spiders. Nor should it. Having an on-tap giant army with no downsides doesn't make for an interesting gameplay. Webber having to consider the limitations of his spiders makes him a more unique character, and thus an interesting choice compared to, for example, Wurt, who has other followers and different disadvantages.

Wendy can summon her dead sister Abigail, who is now a ghost. Abigail can fight with Wendy, and vexes her targets (plural) which makes the target take more damage than normal from all sources, including Wendy. Abigail attacks fast enough to keep this vex up while she's attacking enemies. She also gains a shield that blocks all damage for a short while after being hit, which allows her to defeat hordes of enemies on her own (especially with potions that Wendy can use on Abigail to improve this effect). Abigail can also be revived for free if she dies, albeit with lower health for a while, though this too can be remedied by using a potion from Wendy's current skill tree version. She also follows you everywhere, doesn't lose loyalty, and emits light.

Wendy herself doesn't have half the maximum sanity as Wilson, but rather the same number. In fact, she loses less sanity over time than other characters, and can craft highly-effective sanity-restoring structures. She can eat food normally and doesn't gain less value out of it.

Wendy has two downsides. If she hits an enemy not vexed by Abigail, instead of doing more damage than normal, she does less. Also, if Abigail dies, Wendy loses 30 sanity. Both of these downsides mean the same thing. Wendy should take care of Abigail and try to prevent her from dying, for there is a cost for Abigail dying.

But we said that Abigail can defeat hordes of mobs on her own without dying. This makes Wendy's disadvantage most relevant when fighting bosses.

Wendy has multiple ways of helping Abigail survive boss fights. She can recall Abigail when she's in danger and summon her at a more fortunate time. She can, with the current version of the Team Spirit skills, move Abigail to chosen locations to avoid danger. She can use highly-potent healing potions. She can even turn Abigail into a more defensive gestalt form that is designed specifically for fighting bosses. These tools, as demonstrated in these forums and elsewhere, can let Wendy solo any currently-existing boss in the game while using Abigail and without having her die.

Making Abigail difficult to kill, or able to tank bosses, whether or not one cinsiders this to be the case with the current version of Blessed Sisturn III, as I see it, makes Wendy a much less interesting, and much more one-dimensional character. If Abigail can fight on top of an late-game boss, in a solo game, with the occasional potion, without Wendy having to worry for her, it seems to me that Wendy does not have to worry about any downside. As stated above, this would make for an overall less fun character to play.

I am aware however that people want to feel more in control over Abigail not dying. I believe that addressing that, if it is to be done, should come through other means than making Abigail tanky. Whether it is through temporary health as was available in a previous version of the beta, better control of her movement through changes to Team Spirit or otherwise, new potions, or any other way, I believe that ways of changing Abigail, that do not make her tanky, would be overall far better than those that do, as the latter make for a character closer to Wilson with less unique and dynamic decisions to make.

[Xplan]

let's return attack invincibility to gestalt abi

[Steorra]

Yeah, Wortox should never become neutral to pigman. Nerf Wortox first, don't be flexible standard.

Same for Woodie. He should being completely in chaos when moonstorm happened. He should in a mess with his shadow creatures after his sanity drained out when he in his transformation. Don't be flexible standard.

And same for Winona. She should be struggle with her bulky machines.

And same for Willow. She was struggling in winter before, why she could easily deal with winter with her current warm star spell?

[thesooz9000]

 

19 minutes ago, Steorra said:

Yeah, Wortox should never become neutral to pigman. Nerf Wortox first, don't be flexible standard.

Same for Woodie. He should being completely in chaos when moonstorm happened. He should in a mess with his shadow creatures after his sanity drained out when he in his transformation. Don't be flexible standard.

And same for Winona. She should be struggle with her bulky machines.

And same for Willow. She was struggling in winter before, why she could easily deal with winter with her current warm star spell?

Wortox's downside is gaining half stats from food.

 

Woodie's downside is not being able to use items in were form.

 

Winona has to farm a bunch of stuff to use her machines.

 

Willow never struggled with winter pre-rework.

[Uedo]

To you.

[thesooz9000]

3 minutes ago, Uedo said:

To you.

To a-lot of people.

[Steorra]

17 minutes ago, thesooz9000 said:

 

Wortox's downside is gaining half stats from food.

 

Woodie's downside is not being able to use items in were form.

 

Winona has to farm a bunch of stuff to use her machines.

 

Willow never struggled with winter pre-rework.

Yeah, you think you have the right of interpretation of to define what is a downside.

I have no interest to discuss with a such self-centred perspective.

[Uedo]

5 minutes ago, thesooz9000 said:

To a-lot of people.

And not to many more.

[thesooz9000]

1 minute ago, Uedo said:

And not to many more.

Weaknesses are important to differentiate characters and their game-play loops.

[Steorra]

5 minutes ago, Uedo said:

And not to many more.

The trick of Elitisim (hyprocritism) is just kick everyone they don't like out then claim that voices out of them are invalid. Amounts is meaningless for these flexible standard.

[thesooz9000]

Just now, Steorra said:

The trick of Elitisim (hyprocritism) is just kick everyone they don't like out then claim that voices out of them are invalid. Amounts is meaningless for these flexible standard.

The first post stated that it was a thing only for the Original Poster, I stated that it actually mattered to a-lot of people aswell.

 

Just cause someone disagrees with you does not mean they are apart of the "big bad elitism club"

[Uedo]

2 minutes ago, thesooz9000 said:

Weaknesses are important to differentiate characters and their game-play loops.

There are many metrics to differentiate characters, you could make an argument that the artwork would weigh heavier to this than mechanics. In regards to game-play loops, you're zero-ing in on weaknesses when anything related to gameplay as a whole would be considered potentially core to the game-play loop of each character, you have an equally easy time arguing strengths are important to their individual game-play loops too.

[thesooz9000]

Just now, Uedo said:

There are many metrics to differentiate characters, you could make an argument that the artwork would weigh heavier to this than mechanics. In regards to game-play loops, you're zero-ing in on weaknesses when anything related to gameplay as a whole would be considered potentially core to the game-play loop of each character, you have an equally easy time arguing strengths are important to their individual game-play loops too.

Weaknesses force you to change up your gameplay loop, Strengths don't. You could play a character such as wolfgang exactly like wilson, And do the exact same thing wilson can.

Doing the exact same thing as wilson as wendy is simply worse, the weakness forces you to change your gameplay loop

[Uedo]

3 minutes ago, thesooz9000 said:

The first post stated that it was a thing only for the Original Poster, I stated that it actually mattered to a-lot of people aswell.

May be a translation thing? My point wasn't that it was exclusively the view of the OP, that would be insane. Obviously it's a view many people will have. But OP is giving the assertion that their view is THE view, I disagree, as do others. I was highlighting that viewpoint I guess.

[thesooz9000]

2 minutes ago, Uedo said:

May be a translation thing? My point wasn't that it was exclusively the view of the OP, that would be insane. Obviously it's a view many people will have. But OP is giving the assertion that their view is THE view, I disagree, as do others. I was highlighting that viewpoint I guess.

Maybe we're misunderstanding?
Topic of the post is "Character weaknesses are important"

You stated "To You"

Am I missing something here?

--

Ah, I see, You mean Character Weaknesses aren't as important to other people.

[Uedo]

1 minute ago, thesooz9000 said:

Weaknesses force you to change up your gameplay loop, Strengths don't. You could play a character such as wolfgang exactly like wilson, And do the exact same thing wilson can.

Doing the exact same thing as wilson as wendy is simply worse, the weakness forces you to change your gameplay loop

Listen, we're on a forum where people argue characters are tied to them in terms of personality and they a in a type of kinship with them - You have threads upon threads of what a character should do because their art is a creepy little girl, I don't think most conversations here are tied to mechanical measurements.

I do see what you mean though, I do agree with that to be honest - I think to how I play others and it does change things.... But only slightly, it's marginal at best for me but I recognise people may adapt their 'runs' more.

1 minute ago, thesooz9000 said:

Maybe we're misunderstanding?
Topic of the post is "Character weaknesses are important"

You stated "To You"

Am I missing something here?

No, I don't think so. 

I feel it is important to OP, it isn't to me. I feel OP has asserted that this is the prevailing view, I don't think you can make a claim like that. 

No bad feeling, I just don't think as many feel the same, not to the same degree at least.

5 minutes ago, thesooz9000 said:

Weaknesses force you to change up your gameplay loop, Strengths don't. You could play a character such as wolfgang exactly like wilson, And do the exact same thing wilson can.

Doing the exact same thing as wilson as wendy is simply worse, the weakness forces you to change your gameplay loop

And that's not entirely true. In my Wendy loop, I keep a stack of 30 butterflies in a bundle with 60 mourning glory and a ham bat. I never take the time to do this with anyone else (for obvious reasons) - It very much changes up my game-play loop, now I do a quick 'stock-take' after each boss and replace what I used in the fight.

[thesooz9000]

1 minute ago, Uedo said:

Listen, we're on a forum where people argue characters are tied to them in terms of personality and they a in a type of kinship with them - You have threads upon threads of what a character should do because their art is a creepy little girl, I don't think most conversations here are tied to mechanical measurements.

Except we are in the beta branch, in a topic discussing why weaknesses are important for characters to differentiate game-play loops. and considering like almost 70% of the current threads about how to balance Wendy.

10 minutes ago, Uedo said:

And that's not entirely true. In my Wendy loop, I keep a stack of 30 butterflies in a bundle with 60 mourning glory and a ham bat. I never take the time to do this with anyone else (for obvious reasons) - It very much changes up my game-play loop, now I do a quick 'stock-take' after each boss and replace what I used in the fight.

What you're saying means you do change your gameplay loop whilst playing as wendy though.

[SpiderSister]

1 hour ago, Xplan said:

let's return attack invincibility to gestalt abi

I personally think that could work, given the right numbers and behaviour.

Given what you need to do to switch to and from gestalt Abigail, and given that she loses her AoE damage, I think it would be fine if she were even more defensive, as long as she does less damage than what you could get from the shadow side (being the more defensive option).

That way people who want to have a very defensive Abigail can get that, and it would have enough downsides (no AoE damage, difficulty switching, less damage than shadow) compared to regular/shadow Abigail that it shouldn't be the clear go-to option.

[Uedo]

12 minutes ago, thesooz9000 said:

Except we are in the beta branch, in a topic discussing why weaknesses are important for characters to differentiate game-play loops. and considering like almost 70% of the current threads about how to balance Wendy.

What you're saying means you do change your gameplay loop whilst playing as wendy though.

In the beta branch forums there are threads of topics discussing thematic designs and what it means to be a 'Wendy main', a lot of these posts are from people who relate to the character and they state as such, that's what i'm referencing - these have come in waves too, some days nearly the entire first page will be full of threads such as these (admittedly, this has quietened down a good bit, but that doesn't detract from my point).

And yes, that was my point but from the perspective of strength. I have changed my gameplay loop, I would argue that it's due to the strengths of the current Shadow Abigail that has inclined me to do this though. I wouldn't do this unless I found it to be particularly strong - gathering the resources feels like a cheeky necessary task for a payout that is far worth the cost. 

It's my initial point, it's down to perspective and downsides don't inherently get viewed as a downsides by all. You still have people state Maxwell is difficult due to his low health, but I personally find him to be easy because of his abilties - the downside doesn't come into effect at all for the most part. There's a number of examples and it would be frustrating to go through them all, but there are a number of ways downsides are positives once you have the knowledge of how to utilise it (i'm not referencing Maxwell specifically here).
They're just not that impactful, not now in this phase of DST.

[SpiderSister]

1 hour ago, Steorra said:

Yeah, Wortox should never become neutral to pigman. Nerf Wortox first, don't be flexible standard.

Same for Woodie. He should being completely in chaos when moonstorm happened. He should in a mess with his shadow creatures after his sanity drained out when he in his transformation. Don't be flexible standard.

And same for Winona. She should be struggle with her bulky machines.

And same for Willow. She was struggling in winter before, why she could easily deal with winter with her current warm star spell?

Regarding Wortox, I address another major downside he has in my post. It is fine that skill trees address a downside of a character, given that a major downside that makes the character unique still exists.

Regarding Woodie, I do believe he would be more fun given more downsides. There isn't a flexible double standard, I've never said that I like that.

Regarding Winona, I haven't been playing for long enough to know if there was such a downside in the past. While I do think she's fun, I also wish she had more downsides than losing hunger when building on high hunger and building slowly otherwise (not counting having to clog your inventory if you want to carry your unique items).

Regarding Willow, yes, I don't like Willow.

Not all characters have significant downsides, and I did not write that. I wrote that downsides are important to have, with explanations for why I think so. I do wish that some of the characters had more significant downsides, but this isn't going to happen within this beta and was therefore not relevant to the post.

[SpiderSister]

58 minutes ago, Uedo said:

To you.

This is implied when one uses the word "important" in such a context, as it is a subjective word.

[thesooz9000]

8 minutes ago, Uedo said:

In the beta branch forums there are threads of topics discussing thematic designs and what it means to be a 'Wendy main', a lot of these posts are from people who relate to the character and they state as such, that's what i'm referencing - these have come in waves too, some days nearly the entire first page will be full of threads such as these (admittedly, this has quietened down a good bit, but that doesn't detract from my point).

And yes, that was my point but from the perspective of strength. I have changed my gameplay loop, I would argue that it's due to the strengths of the current Shadow Abigail that has inclined me to do this though. I wouldn't do this unless I found it to be particularly strong - gathering the resources feels like a cheeky necessary task for a payout that is far worth the cost. 

It's my initial point, it's down to perspective and downsides don't inherently get viewed as a downsides by all. You still have people state Maxwell is difficult due to his low health, but I personally find him to be easy because of his abilties - the downside doesn't come into effect at all for the most part. There's a number of examples and it would be frustrating to go through them all, but there are a number of ways downsides are positives once you have the knowledge of how to utilise it (i'm not referencing Maxwell specifically here).
They're just not that impactful, not now in this phase of DST.

Also, I don't see how people playing characters for their themes/personality changes why weaknesses are important for their game-play loop.

 

Shadow Abigail should be tuned, yes, but Blessed Sisturn III literally quadruples Abigail's effective health, It ensures you always have Abigail up for your increased damage + her damage on-top of it, it removes any distinction in the way Wendy fights other characters.

[SpiderSister]

55 minutes ago, Uedo said:

And not to many more.

When something matters to a lot of people, replying this way is just saying that you don't care about their opinion.

I acknowledged in my post that people's concerns with Abigail's survivability should be addressed, rather than similarly dismissing their opinions.

Similarly, there is a post by @Lardee where they make a suggestion that's trying to appease everyone on the forums.

Your reply here shows that you, rather than us, claim that a character should be just what you want, without considering others.

[Kamen Rider]

1 hour ago, Steorra said:

Yeah, Wortox should never become neutral to pigman. Nerf Wortox first, don't be flexible standard.

Same for Woodie. He should being completely in chaos when moonstorm happened. He should in a mess with his shadow creatures after his sanity drained out when he in his transformation. Don't be flexible standard.

And same for Winona. She should be struggle with her bulky machines.

And same for Willow. She was struggling in winter before, why she could easily deal with winter with her current warm star spell?

The summary is very good. In fact, the shortcomings of these characters are more or less optimized by the skill tree. However, the skill tree that stands out because of its fun does not make these characters' boring ', but rather more fun.
I think this is the dilemma faced by Wendy's Skill Tree.

[thesooz9000]

1 minute ago, Kamen Rider said:

The summary is very good. In fact, the shortcomings of these characters are more or less optimized by the skill tree. However, the skill tree that stands out because of its fun does not make these characters' boring ', but rather more fun.
I think this is the dilemma faced by Wendy's Skill Tree.

The Skill tree has already given you options to help with the shortcomings of wendy's downside, whilst not removing it entirely, (Pipspook quest, instant lvl 3 elixir), Having blessed sisturn III literally removes having to worry about abigail as a downside, and just let's her be an immortal follower you have whilst you kite like wilson.