So, Walter is pretty fun and really powerful!

[OMEGASCRUFF]

37 minutes ago, Mysterious box said:

I don't get why a character based on being cautious would reward being aggressive even then what would you even offer to encourage this style of play?

We have several characters that do this already. Do you mean for Walter in specific, or conceptually? Because for the former, probably melee damage or improved weapon durability, maybe both but definitely the former, even a little bit would help. For the latter... what..?

And he's not based on being cautious. He's literally fearless other than his hemophobia. I'm not sure where you got this idea other than his over-dependence on his slingshot, which has only gotten easier to lean on now that it does good DPS with this beta. Being aggressive doesn't mean face-tanking, unless it's strategically prudent to do so (Fuelweaver, mostly.)

[IAmAFurrz]

22 hours ago, Catuna_ said:

you have to be literally hugging a mob to get stuck in the icker, this never happens realistically from the auto-attack range
considering that you want to move away from enemies and not towards them, this will literally never happen...
unlike something like willow setting mobs on fire for more damage which can genuinely be obnoxious
even for something like running past the ice deer when klaus is casting the freeze attack everyone has more than enough room to not get stuck in the icker, you're just making baseless claims on something you've never thoroughly tested

i did test it, this was from 2 weeks ago so id guess area was reduced

22 hours ago, Catuna_ said:

you can just use the slingshot... when you beat bee queen it has the same dps as him swinging melee weapons (better if you're not animation cancelling)... he has diversity in his ammos from utility in cheap freezes and slows, and he has aoe and high single target damage all at once

thats the problem rlly

22 hours ago, Catuna_ said:

also walter's slingshot far outpowers the gloomerang, aswell as being more convenient: the gloomerang has low durability

con: id have to play walter (plus i already said i barely need ranged for fun for bosses)

low durability doesnt matter, i barely use ranged. and i use shadow rift stuff so i always bring fix kits so that matters even less

22 hours ago, Catuna_ said:

walter has a very well written personality

a whole 1 thing about boyscout, and a dog lover (literally everyone). oh yea and bee allergies for some reason

22 hours ago, Catuna_ said:

it honestly just kind of sounds to me like you havent played this character at all, idk how you can say he offers nothing

sorry, hes not fun. just the worst character to pick in a group now (above wes)

slows do nothing for melee teammates either, bosses have same attack range and same attack rate

22 hours ago, Catuna_ said:

i agree that 3 slowing ammos is odd and i'd be more than down to remove slow stacking and reworking these bullets but i dont see why you're trying to cater to melee combat much more than he already does, just play a different character? when you try to "improve melee for walter" all you end up doing is going against the concept of woby and the slingshot

thats the problem, they do no effort in promoting a different playstyle from apply the slow -> shoot, into stepping a few steps back with little risk. and thats why he offers literally nothing, for when i play multiplayer, he does nothing, while in solo hes boring. id rather play wortox, hence why i have not played more than 1 hour with walter in my 6.1k-hour playtime, including beta

22 hours ago, Catuna_ said:

when you try to "improve melee for walter" all you end up doing is going against the concept of woby and the slingshot

so... you admit they are just... zeroing in on slingshot and woby for combat in the skill tree

also, going against previous bad design is not a bad thing

22 hours ago, Catuna_ said:

pretending like walter is forced to make mobs move at a snail's pace to be enjoyable is quite odd to me

i never said that slowing mobs to a crawl is enjoyable, its why i hate him

22 hours ago, Catuna_ said:

you don't really have to slow mobs more than you want

you have to completely stop urself from using the stupid thing that made walter ranged completely riskless to make him have any risk (unless its slow bosses which are already easy to run away from)

22 hours ago, Catuna_ said:

he has a 1x damage mod because it'd be dumb for him to be forced to not use melee weapons

ok what does this have to do with anything? hes not forced, no one is. wendy isnt forced to, ive been playing with wendy beefalo-less and its 10x funner than walter

22 hours ago, Catuna_ said:

he still offers an aoe option, aoe slows, freeze, damage amping (lunar affinity) and soon will offer boyscout perks and better woby perks (hopefully)

yea. all are slingshots. thats the sin of his entire design, its either super easy (with slow) or you use it like the presenter, which is what i'd want the skill tree to incentivize rather than the ammo type spam (lunar affinity is well designed, but 1-2 good ammos is not gonna make up for the useless ammos he has, or the slows that functionally just shadow prison Jr.)

3 hours ago, OMEGASCRUFF said:

And he's not based on being cautious. He's literally fearless other than his hemophobia.

> fearless 

> skill tree literally promotes the most cowardly playstyle  

[MisterBilly]

i suspect bruds are conflating design they don't like with "Bad design"

[Mysterious box]

6 hours ago, OMEGASCRUFF said:

We have several characters that do this already. Do you mean for Walter in specific, or conceptually? Because for the former, probably melee damage or improved weapon durability, maybe both but definitely the former, even a little bit would help. For the latter... what..?

So basically incentivise being more aggressive by making him like every other character via damage buffs? After that point why even use Walter specifically in the case of the glass canon Wanda already fills that role and various others give those benefits without his downside to account for how would this make Walter speficially more appealing?

6 hours ago, OMEGASCRUFF said:

And he's not based on being cautious. He's literally fearless other than his hemophobia. I'm not sure where you got this idea other than his over-dependence on his slingshot, which has only gotten easier to lean on now that it does good DPS with this beta. Being aggressive doesn't mean face-tanking, unless it's strategically prudent to do so (Fuelweaver, mostly.)

I wonder where I got the idea of him being cautious... could it be his pain quotes for picking harmful things? Him taking sanity damage when he gets hurt? Woby bucking you when you take too much damage? The fact he comes with a portable tent to manage his stats and temperature on the go? No clearly it was just the fact he carries a slingshot with various crowd control capabilities I guess. 

As an aside being fearless doesn't mean reckless.

[aidankocherhans]

7 hours ago, OMEGASCRUFF said:

We have several characters that do this already. Do you mean for Walter in specific, or conceptually? Because for the former, probably melee damage or improved weapon durability, maybe both but definitely the former, even a little bit would help. For the latter... what..?

What logic is there in giving Walter bonus melee damage? It doesn't make sense with his kit, and if for nothing else you can use the slingshot for utility rounds to make melee fights easier

[Guille6785]

10 hours ago, Mysterious box said:

I don't get why a character based on being cautious would reward being aggressive

Walter isn't "based on being cautious", he just punishes you harder for being careless, these aren't the same thing

As I explained earlier the slingshot never seemed to be meant to be how everyone should play Walter, but rather it seemed to be more so a safety tool to fall back on if you aren't confident you can fight in melee range

Walter has always rewarded aggressive play even is his current state, as if you play him well you literally never need to recover sanity, you have excellent sanity management by purposely taking damage e.g. from setting things on fire, you explore the world and assemble the shadow pieces much faster than everyone else because you essentially start with a beefalo and are better suited to rushing consecutive bosses because of the extra carrying capacity from Woby

10 hours ago, Mysterious box said:

what would you even offer to encourage this style of play?

Simply add a portion of the skill tree that improves his existing abilities for as long as Walter doesn't take damage, such as an ability that makes Woby always have top speed as long as you don't get hit regardless of hunger level, allowing walter to move faster when not wearing armor, attacking while on Woby, and even stuff to make the slingshot + melee combination actually the optimal way to get high DPS, such as damage over time pellets that increase melee damage received from enemies

They could also just commit to the boy scout/exploration theme and allow Walter to find rare resources more easily, like how the point of interest markers lead you to stuff for the scrapbook but from much further away; maybe Walter could have Woby smell a trail that leads to a rare resource like totally normal trees, suspicious marbles, Pig King, etc. when you're 20-30 tiles away from it, I think this could genuinely be an awesome perk to speed up the most boring aspect of the game (walking)

[aidankocherhans]

6 hours ago, IAmAFurrz said:

i did test it, this was from 2 weeks ago so id guess area was reduced

thats the problem rlly

con: id have to play walter (plus i already said i barely need ranged for fun for bosses)

low durability doesnt matter, i barely use ranged. and i use shadow rift stuff so i always bring fix kits so that matters even less

a whole 1 thing about boyscout, and a dog lover (literally everyone). oh yea and bee allergies for some reason

sorry, hes not fun. just the worst character to pick in a group now (above wes)

slows do nothing for melee teammates either, bosses have same attack range and same attack rate

thats the problem, they do no effort in promoting a different playstyle from apply the slow -> shoot, into stepping a few steps back with little risk. and thats why he offers literally nothing, for when i play multiplayer, he does nothing, while in solo hes boring. id rather play wortox, hence why i have not played more than 1 hour with walter in my 6.1k-hour playtime, including beta

so... you admit they are just... zeroing in on slingshot and woby for combat in the skill tree

also, going against previous bad design is not a bad thing

i never said that slowing mobs to a crawl is enjoyable, its why i hate him

you have to completely stop urself from using the stupid thing that made walter ranged completely riskless to make him have any risk (unless its slow bosses which are already easy to run away from)

ok what does this have to do with anything? hes not forced, no one is. wendy isnt forced to, ive been playing with wendy beefalo-less and its 10x funner than walter

yea. all are slingshots. thats the sin of his entire design, its either super easy (with slow) or you use it like the presenter, which is what i'd want the skill tree to incentivize rather than the ammo type spam (lunar affinity is well designed, but 1-2 good ammos is not gonna make up for the useless ammos he has, or the slows that functionally just shadow prison Jr.)

> fearless 

> skill tree literally promotes the most cowardly playstyle  

If you fundamentally dislike Walter, what are you even expecting the tree to do? It's not going to make him a completely different character 

6 hours ago, IAmAFurrz said:

hence why i have not played more than 1 hour with walter in my 6.1k-hour playtime, including beta

How could you know this much about the character with so little experience?

[Mysterious box]

14 minutes ago, Guille6785 said:

Walter isn't "based on being cautious", he just punishes you harder for being careless, these aren't the same thing

As I explained earlier the slingshot never seemed to be meant to be how everyone should play Walter, but rather it seemed to be more so a safety tool to fall back on if you aren't confident you can fight in melee range

Walter has always rewarded aggressive play even is his current state, as if you play him well you literally never need to recover sanity, you have excellent sanity management by purposely taking damage e.g. from setting things on fire, you explore the world and assemble the shadow pieces much faster than everyone else because you essentially start with a beefalo and are better suited to rushing consecutive bosses because of the extra carrying capacity from Woby

Agree to disagree playing aggressively increases the odds of getting hit sure if your good enough that didn't matter but I sincerely doubt he was designed with the intention of being a no hit god nor was he likely designed with speed runs in mind if that's what you got from that fine but it seems highly unrealistic.

18 minutes ago, Guille6785 said:

Simply add a portion of the skill tree that improves his existing abilities for as long as Walter doesn't take damage, such as an ability that makes Woby always have top speed as long as you don't get hit regardless of hunger level, allowing walter to move faster when not wearing armor, attacking while on Woby, and even stuff to make the slingshot + melee combination actually the optimal way to get high DPS, such as damage over time pellets that increase melee damage received from enemies

Making Woby's top speed rely on taking no hits or making player take ridiculous levels of risk that is a no armor playstyle just seems entirely out of touch for character's design. Also Walter's never been a high dps character and I don't see the reason to suddenly push him in that direction it's not even like his slingshot doesn't offer crowd control options that assist melee combat to ease his burdens it's just not entirely dps based.

23 minutes ago, Guille6785 said:

They could also just commit to the boy scout/exploration theme and allow Walter to find rare resources more easily, like how the point of interest markers lead you to stuff for the scrapbook but from much further away; maybe Walter could have Woby smell a trail that leads to a rare resource like totally normal trees, suspicious marbles, Pig King, etc. when you're 20-30 tiles away from it, I think this could genuinely be an awesome perk to speed up the most boring aspect of the game (walking)

Like I get people don't like walking in empty space I don't either but that's a biome design problem designing a skill around streamlining the lack of content seems backwards that being said this seems like the most realistic design direction at least.

[Guille6785]

1 minute ago, Mysterious box said:

nor was he likely designed with speed runs in mind if that's what you got from that fine but it seems highly unrealistic.

when did I bring up speedrunning

[Mysterious box]

4 minutes ago, Guille6785 said:

when did I bring up speedrunning

I assumed on the shadow pieces part my bad

[Chewabacca]

7 hours ago, IAmAFurrz said:

i did test it, this was from 2 weeks ago so id guess area was reduced

thats the problem rlly

con: id have to play walter (plus i already said i barely need ranged for fun for bosses)

low durability doesnt matter, i barely use ranged. and i use shadow rift stuff so i always bring fix kits so that matters even less

a whole 1 thing about boyscout, and a dog lover (literally everyone). oh yea and bee allergies for some reason

sorry, hes not fun. just the worst character to pick in a group now (above wes)

slows do nothing for melee teammates either, bosses have same attack range and same attack rate

thats the problem, they do no effort in promoting a different playstyle from apply the slow -> shoot, into stepping a few steps back with little risk. and thats why he offers literally nothing, for when i play multiplayer, he does nothing, while in solo hes boring. id rather play wortox, hence why i have not played more than 1 hour with walter in my 6.1k-hour playtime, including beta

so... you admit they are just... zeroing in on slingshot and woby for combat in the skill tree

also, going against previous bad design is not a bad thing

i never said that slowing mobs to a crawl is enjoyable, its why i hate him

you have to completely stop urself from using the stupid thing that made walter ranged completely riskless to make him have any risk (unless its slow bosses which are already easy to run away from)

ok what does this have to do with anything? hes not forced, no one is. wendy isnt forced to, ive been playing with wendy beefalo-less and its 10x funner than walter

yea. all are slingshots. thats the sin of his entire design, its either super easy (with slow) or you use it like the presenter, which is what i'd want the skill tree to incentivize rather than the ammo type spam (lunar affinity is well designed, but 1-2 good ammos is not gonna make up for the useless ammos he has, or the slows that functionally just shadow prison Jr.)

> fearless 

> skill tree literally promotes the most cowardly playstyle  

This entire reply basically boils down to "Walter suxs because he just does", with the only comment on actual specifics being that slow-downs make him lack risk.

"The worst character to pick in a group now (above Wes)" tell that to my group who asks me for meat and who I can very easily generate infinite gold for. "Going against previous bad design is not a bad thing"? Weren't you calling Walter's design bad because it was supposedly incoherent?

On his slow-down ammos: while I'd prefer it if his ammos had more varied effects, 2/3 of the slow-down ammos are decently expensive, with the icker one you're talking about is only available post-rift. That's reason enough for someone to not use them.

Also, just in general: you're trying to talk like you're an authority on Walter after having played him for all of 1 hour? What exactly do you think you have to contribute?

[Grove]

Icker rounds should steal equipment/items like a cutlass and the og icker lol

Make everyone in a server fear any shadow aligned Walter

[OMEGASCRUFF]

5 hours ago, Mysterious box said:

So basically incentivise being more aggressive by making him like every other character via damage buffs? After that point why even use Walter specifically in the case of the glass canon Wanda already fills that role and various others give those benefits without his downside to account for how would this make Walter speficially more appealing?

Uh, yes..? That's what I said. It's one option. Every other character (besides Wilson and Wes for obvious reasons behind their purposes) does additional damage because of the scale of boss HP pools in this game and the planar system, and all skill trees offer damage to address how uneven the spread of DPS is between characters with only base kits, especially prior to the partially-equalizing effect of planar damage, which is not yet an omnipresent game mechanic. Even Wortox, the most support-oriented character in a game, got a notable DPS increase. This has been part of every single skill tree, but Walter's DPS updates have been entirely biased in favor of the slingshot's ranged DPS capabilities on its own, and not as a utility weapon swap + melee. This is the problem people have with the approach to his skill tree, and there's no good excuse for it to not do both and satisfy more players.

Glass cannon as a concept doesn't currently work in this game with the tools we have. We can stop pretending it does. Wanda failed at this, if you haven't noticed, but she still has an inherent risk/reward to her that Walter does not. He has risk and only risk. I don't really see how glass cannon as a concept can be executed properly in DST so long as there's 95% damage reduction armors, healing is ubiquitous, Beefalo are a thing, or until unmodded Wilba gets ported in with her 0% armor to actually execute on that concept decently well (lol.) Tanking isn't something a glass cannon is even capable of doing. Nothing is currently stopping you from tanking as Walter in most scenarios, even before the beta. And if we're comparing his kind of risk/reward to Wanda, you do know she can actually tank better than most of the cast with her tools and perks, right..? Wanda has nothing to do with this, but if we're going to make false comparisons, then let's at least try to be honest about her. Walter just has some increased costs when tanking, with no reward, because it's melee and nothing about Walter currently benefits it in both the live and beta branches other than ignoring insanity auras. He needs something else to go with that, and this skill tree hasn't given that to him at all.

He would literally be "speficially more appealing" if he had the versatility to both fight at range and also up close with a unique application for slingshot effects. The solution answers your question already.

As I said in the post you literally quoted yourself, weapon efficiency would also be a really nice option on him as a way for players to weigh the costs of ammo against the improved costs of melee. If the only DPS increase he gets is through Horror Rounds, then, welp, it's not the end of the world in that department (though we'll see what they do to improve Lunar alignment in the next hotfix before saying any of his damage numbers are decided...), but they honestly don't really last long enough and require the Void Cowl + Grip for max duration, and the Jelly Grip is specifically designed for swap effects, so there's some apparent issues here already with how this is executed. I wish his slingshot utility was more than just Horror Rounds' short-lived DoT and boring slowdown, but it's definitely still helpful for melee. But if damage is the way the devs want to fix this, then even a melee DPS bonus as small as around 20% with specific conditions required would be enough to be satisfying while addressing his incomplete design regarding his risk/reward, and improve his damage with the rest of the cast. Nobody's asking for a 2x mightiness multiplier + planar damage here. It wouldn't take much to fix this formulaic problem on Walter even when we're looking at it from just a damage perspective alone, especially with slingshot utility improved.

5 hours ago, Mysterious box said:

I wonder where I got the idea of him being cautious... could it be his pain quotes for picking harmful things? Him taking sanity damage when he gets hurt? Woby bucking you when you take too much damage? The fact he comes with a portable tent to manage his stats and temperature on the go? No clearly it was just the fact he carries a slingshot with various crowd control capabilities I guess. 

As an aside being fearless doesn't mean reckless.

What point are you even trying to make here? He's a hemophobe. It's literally in his character description. You could Google what that means, if you don't understand it. The first two things you mentioned are addressed by this directly. Woby is a foil to Walter's character. He's literally a camper. And the last point isn't even valid until release. These things have cohesion with his downside, obviously, which is what you're trying to say, because that's how game design works. But you're taking the wrong conclusion from it. This doesn't have to do anything with being cautious. He's literally not cautious and never has been; cautiousness has never been his brand. He's only scared of being hurt. You've oversimplifying things down to his weakness and being willingly rigid instead of open-minded about Walter's potential as a character, because he has so much promise that you're choosing to not consider. His gameplay is not just his downside, not even close.

Also, he doesn't carry a slingshot with various crowd control capabilities. He WILL carry a slingshot with various crowd control capabilities. Hell, its DPS is horrid on the live branch. You know this is a beta test for an update that comes out in the future, right? What's on the beta currently is not exactly what's going to be released, especially when they've specifically stated they're looking into adding more skills and adjust some numbers. This is the chance for positive change. Right now is the best opportunity they have to support multiple playstyles on Walter instead of only supporting just one that doesn't appeal to everyone. They did a pretty good job of supporting the ranged option, but there's no reason to have such a narrow scope. This is their best chance to fix the poor design on Walter that's made him to be the least popular character in the game, and his skill tree fails to address this flaw properly. While I like him a lot, this is incredibly obvious.

Nobody said anything about being reckless. Please don't put words in my mouth, or anyone else's — you're not doing yourself any favors when you do this. Those words are not synonyms. Nobody is rewarded for recklessness in this game. I'm personally asking for a skill that directly incentivizes him to play up close and utilize the slingshot for DoT and status (and I'm not even a fan of all the slowdown to begin with and wish that wasn't the only direction they decided to take with status, but at least it promotes kiting.) Damage is the most accessible route, and it's something that's been updated for every single character who's received a skill tree so far for multiple obvious reasons. If they do any melee damage bonus at all, I'd prefer it were tied to mixed use of the slingshot with melee weapons, and/or was only applied when at full health for both flavor reasons and as a reward for good kiting and keeping him unharmed. Hell, make it based on uninterrupted melee hit streak to really double down on things. Took me a whole 30 seconds to come up with this for Walter, as it's a concept successfully used in many other games already, isn't redundant with other characters, simultaneously addresses his flavor and current weaknesses in his playstyle, updates his damage a bit with the rest of the cast, and rewards smart gameplay. But there's an endless number of ways the devs could choose to remedy his issues. I don't know why you seem to be envisioning the concept of mixing the slingshot with melee combat as inherently supporting recklessness, when that isn't even what's happening in the OP's videos and nobody suggested this. Multiple goals can be achieved here through a very basic degree of nuance, and I'm not the only person with specific ideas of how to improve him. You're jumping to a conclusion for no reason besides argumentation. We just want better reasons to do what OP is doing or something similar. Nobody's asking for him to be sloppy in combat. Maybe you're thinking of Wendy players.

5 hours ago, aidankocherhans said:

What logic is there in giving Walter bonus melee damage? It doesn't make sense with his kit, and if for nothing else you can use the slingshot for utility rounds to make melee fights easier

The same logic that an 8-year-old girl with an incorporeal sister can do more DPS than the paladin/bard hybrid character who LARPs as a viking warrior. If they want a thematic reason, it can be as simple as something regarding his good precision and aim, or his overconfidence and moxie until wounded. This game is largely fantastical; they can find a way to justify whatever they want in the flavor department. But regardless, it DOES make sense for his kit from a game design perspective.

As many have discussed in these forums, there is still a missing aspect to his risk/reward formula in the reward portion that's ripe with opportunity now that he's getting the attention he deserves. As you can see in the OP's demonstration, you can definitely mix the slingshot with melee combat and see... some results. But the issue is that there's no supported incentive to do so, the current execution can be improved, and his beta updates have only made it harder to justify doing this with competitive ranged DPS and significantly better economy on his ammo. We want OP's approach to be actively supported and expanded upon by this update, because it's more fun and appealing to many players, and it's a unique playstyle available to Walter. And, again, pure damage isn't the only option here to improve this, but it's pretty easy to justify it in at least a smaller way when every other character is getting melee DPS improvements.

3 hours ago, Mysterious box said:

Agree to disagree playing aggressively increases the odds of getting hit sure if your good enough that didn't matter but I sincerely doubt he was designed with the intention of being a no hit god nor was he likely designed with speed runs in mind if that's what you got from that fine but it seems highly unrealistic.

Then why are you defending him having exclusively a single long-distance playstyle that literally accomplishes him being a "no hit god" more than any other character? You're shooting down your own argument in the same exact sentence. He used melee before the beta all the time, but now there's even less reason to do so.

...

Ugh, can we step back here for a second here? Seriously, what is going on with Walter discussion? How is versatility and appealing to more players a bad thing..? I don't really understand what people are trying to defend here other than the status quo and weak design philosophy. What kind future do people even envision for this rad character? Do we want the beta to release and few people pick him up long-term yet again? Because that's all that being narrow-minded is going to accomplish. He's literally the least popular character on the roster, and this is the best (and probably only) chance to fix that. He can't keep the same exact formula and he needs real change, as scawy as it may sound. Let him have a more varied playstyle. Nobody's asking for anything to be taken away from Walter. Hell, I even like the option for the fully ranged combat, especially with teammates. People just want more supported options, not less. Listen to the people who want to like Walter, but can't. Their input is incredibly valuable (when they can properly articulate the reasons why, anyways.) Feedback is, like, the main reason why a public beta is even done in the first place (besides the unpaid labor, of course, oop.)

[aidankocherhans]

1 hour ago, OMEGASCRUFF said:

As many have discussed in these forums, there is still a missing aspect to his risk/reward formula in the reward portion

The reward is that you don't need to think about sanity outside of combat, and if you dodge well enough you don't need to worry about sanity in combat 

[OMEGASCRUFF]

15 minutes ago, aidankocherhans said:

The reward is that you don't need to think about sanity outside of combat, and if you dodge well enough you don't need to worry about sanity in combat 

This is what we're calling a reward? Oof.

[gaymime]

37 minutes ago, OMEGASCRUFF said:

This is what we're calling a reward? Oof.

if negating 1/3rd of the entire survival system by doing well is not a reward then i don't understand the concept of rewards x'''D

[aidankocherhans]

45 minutes ago, OMEGASCRUFF said:

This is what we're calling a reward? Oof.

Why should damage boosts be the only reward every character gets, what's even the point of them at that point? Negating sanity loss is a much more interesting mechanic. You're also thinking only in terms of combat, his sanity is partially combat based but also affects the rest of the game too. He's immune to the passive drain from darkness so it requires little to no maintenance most of the time. If it's a bit worse in combat that's fine, it's a benefit for the rest of the game (and if you can't dodge enough just use the freaking slingshot)

[OMEGASCRUFF]

16 minutes ago, gaymime said:

if negating 1/3rd of the entire survival system by doing well is not a reward then i don't understand the concept of rewards x'''D

He doesn't negate it. He just interacts with sanity differently from other characters. It's not the exact same system anymore. Even out of boss fights, he still has to be careful about it being low at a bad time like any other character, which will happen without enough healing on hand or an unexpected situation happens, or you just really screw up against an enemy. The Enlightened Crown alone already invalidates day-to-day sanity for the entire cast, anyways, so I don't know why this is important. He literally has a cheap portable tent for casual purposes, and can eat food like almost anyone else, so why did this ever matter outside of combat other than convenience and inconvenience? Wortox straight-up invalidates all 3 stats AND kiting AND travel, and this is important on Walter for some reason?

I'm clearly moreso referring to in-combat rewards for an in-combat downside, which is how this works for almost the entire cast. Wormwood is more or less the only other character who's built this way, but he's an entirely different selection of perks, solutions, and contributions to a team, and if you haven't noticed, people actually play that character, and he's not even free.

1 minute ago, aidankocherhans said:

Why should damage boosts be the only reward every character gets, what's even the point of them at that point? Negating sanity loss is a much more interesting mechanic. You're also thinking only in terms of combat, his sanity is partially combat based but also affects the rest of the game too. He's immune to the passive drain from darkness so it requires little to no maintenance most of the time. If it's a bit worse in combat that's fine, it's a benefit for the rest of the game (and if you can't dodge enough just use the freaking slingshot)

Uhh, I never said it HAS to be damage, but it's a viable option. So why are you even quoting me? Yes, combat is where the risk/reward matters most. Is this not obvious by the context of this entire thread? I don't really understand how this argument is meaningful if you take a quick glance at the rest of the cast. This isn't good design. It's not rewarding, it's pigeonholed Walter into one promoted play style, and there's a reason why only a single other character in the entire cast functions this way in combat + out of combat. It's because it's a bad concept, and it's clear from Walter's complete lack of popularity that it matters way more for his success. This is nothing worth playing a character for, and I don't know why we're acting like it is.

Anyways, I'm running out of patience here. There's a bigger picture involved but people are way too zoomed in to even think about it, and it's becoming depressing to watch.

Does anyone have another suggestion as to why he's the least played character in the game? I'm all ears. Because as far as I can tell, his formula just doesn't work, and this has been discussed before by multiple people on these forums and on other mediums. I'm trying to see it fixed, but it seems people are incredibly adamant about being permissive of it, instead. I don't know how anyone can set the bar so low.

Nobody's answered my final question in my post, so until that's done, I don't see a point in conversing here about this any further. I still have no idea what you're trying to defend other than mediocrity, and I'm not interested in that. People are still overall unsatisfied by this character. We're clearly not on the same page regarding Walter, that the end result should be a new influx of players interested in playing him and his recurring complaints being directly addressed, and I'm not on your side if that somehow offends you. I want improvement for more players, not less, and I don't want the same complaints about the character perpetuated until this game's lifespan ends. Thanks, but I'll pass. But if you want to fight for failure, have fun. I gotta go travel for Crimbus festivities anyway.

These forums are so weird.

[Dingle]

56 minutes ago, OMEGASCRUFF said:

 Does anyone have another suggestion as to why he's the least played character in the game? I'm all ears. Because as far as I can tell, his formula just doesn't work, and this has been discussed before by multiple people on these forums and on other mediums.

Yeah, I keep trying to say what makes Walter appealing. I send my message to both the devs and Walter players trying to provide feedback. No one frankly seems to grasp what makes him interesting.

It's really simple. What makes him enticing as a character is his bee allergy.

I'm going to do an enormous post when I can, talking about this. The whole bee allergy thing should really be expanded into a whole Allergy branch of his tree. It can be devoted not just to his bee allergy, but you can unlock other allergies too.

It's taking me awhile because I want to make some concept art.

[MisterBilly]

38 minutes ago, OMEGASCRUFF said:

Does anyone have another suggestion as to why he's the least played character in the game? I'm all ears. Because as far as I can tell, his formula just doesn't work, and this has been discussed before by multiple people on these forums and on other mediums. I'm trying to see it fixed, but it seems people are incredibly adamant about being permissive of it, instead. I don't know how anyone can set the bar so low.

It probably has something to do with the fact that pre-beta, he was just a worse Wilson in combat. You wouldn't use your slingshot at all because even if you had the best rounds, which were significantly more expensive, you would still do less damage than Wes with a darksword, and if you ever got hit without a hat and armor, you'd instantly tank on sanity. The testing with Walter on the beta has been pretty scarce too, because people weren't playing him before, due to this.

His ranged combat is significantly better in the beta, so there will definitely be an increase of players post beta who will play Walter, just because he can actually do something now that isn't sleep in tents and tell spoopy stories.

46 minutes ago, OMEGASCRUFF said:

Nobody's answered my final question in my post, so until that's done, I don't see a point in conversing here about this any further. I still have no idea what you're trying to defend other than mediocrity, and I'm not interested in that. People are still overall unsatisfied by this character. We're clearly not on the same page regarding Walter, that the end result should be a new influx of players interested in playing him and his recurring complaints being directly addressed, and I'm not on your side if that somehow offends you. I want improvement for more players, not less, and I don't want the same complaints about the character perpetuated until this game's lifespan ends. Thanks, but I'll pass. But if you want to fight for failure, have fun. I gotta go travel for Crimbus festivities anyway.

These forums are so weird.

Half of people are satisfied from what I've seen, but it wouldn't hurt my feelings if they added skills of the slingshot to make him benefit from using it with melee. I don't think anyone would mind that, but a lot of people including myself actually do enjoy the simple combat solution that simply requires getting more resources in exchange for negating a lot of combat from ranged.

Honestly, I think the worst thing Don't Starve did was take a turn from the survival aspect and start turning into a combat focused game, but such is life.

 

I just, I don't know man, mediocrity? Fight for failure? Perspective is a hell of a drug I guess. Much love bro, merry merry.

[gaymime]

2 hours ago, OMEGASCRUFF said:

He doesn't negate it. He just interacts with sanity differently from other characters. It's not the exact same system anymore. Even out of boss fights, he still has to be careful about it being low at a bad time like any other character, which will happen without enough healing on hand or an unexpected situation happens, or you just really screw up against an enemy. The Enlightened Crown alone already invalidates day-to-day sanity for the entire cast, anyways, so I don't know why this is important. He literally has a cheap portable tent for casual purposes, and can eat food like almost anyone else, so why did this ever matter outside of combat other than convenience and inconvenience? Wortox straight-up invalidates all 3 stats AND kiting AND travel, and this is important on Walter for some reason?

I'm clearly moreso referring to in-combat rewards for an in-combat downside, which is how this works for almost the entire cast. Wormwood is more or less the only other character who's built this way, but he's an entirely different selection of perks, solutions, and contributions to a team, and if you haven't noticed, people actually play that character, and he's not even free.

like i said; if you do well it is negated. i made no claims that he'd negate it if you did a rubbish job. i also made no claims that he was somehow better than other characters or that this reward is equally weighted from day one to final boss. please understand the full sum of a statement before trying to debunk it? all i said is that if the player played well 1/3rd of the survival is negated which it IS. i also heavily implied that this is a good reward which you are free to take umbrage with but i still stand by regardless of how often you try to explain that what we really need is another wendy.

 

tldr; if your main reason to put walter down is because he is not the best fighter then you shouldnt be having this conversation you should be out there playing wendy/wolfgang. walter isnt meant to be the best fighter and reducing him down to how well he can facetank a boss isn't productive. he is the dst equivalent of the archer class and as such he has the standards of the class; moving fast, moving often and keeping distance.

[IAmAFurrz]

8 hours ago, Chewabacca said:

"Going against previous bad design is not a bad thing"? Weren't you calling Walter's design bad because it was supposedly incoherent?

yes. incoherent is bad, now there is a clear direction they're making him go in and the bad design is part of his incohesion

8 hours ago, Chewabacca said:

Also, just in general: you're trying to talk like you're an authority on Walter after having played him for all of 1 hour? What exactly do you think you have to contribute?

im saying that id rather learn about any other character than walter. bc he is boring

[Chewabacca]

2 hours ago, OMEGASCRUFF said:

He doesn't negate it. He just interacts with sanity differently from other characters. It's not the exact same system anymore. Even out of boss fights, he still has to be careful about it being low at a bad time like any other character, which will happen without enough healing on hand or an unexpected situation happens, or you just really screw up against an enemy. The Enlightened Crown alone already invalidates day-to-day sanity for the entire cast, anyways, so I don't know why this is important. He literally has a cheap portable tent for casual purposes, and can eat food like almost anyone else, so why did this ever matter outside of combat other than convenience and inconvenience? Wortox straight-up invalidates all 3 stats AND kiting AND travel, and this is important on Walter for some reason?

I'm clearly moreso referring to in-combat rewards for an in-combat downside, which is how this works for almost the entire cast. Wormwood is more or less the only other character who's built this way, but he's an entirely different selection of perks, solutions, and contributions to a team, and if you haven't noticed, people actually play that character, and he's not even free.

Uhh, I never said it HAS to be damage, but it's a viable option. So why are you even quoting me? Yes, combat is where the risk/reward matters most. Is this not obvious by the context of this entire thread? I don't really understand how this argument is meaningful if you take a quick glance at the rest of the cast. This isn't good design. It's not rewarding, it's pigeonholed Walter into one promoted play style, and there's a reason why only a single other character in the entire cast functions this way in combat + out of combat. It's because it's a bad concept, and it's clear from Walter's complete lack of popularity that it matters way more for his success. This is nothing worth playing a character for, and I don't know why we're acting like it is.

Anyways, I'm running out of patience here. There's a bigger picture involved but people are way too zoomed in to even think about it, and it's becoming depressing to watch.

Does anyone have another suggestion as to why he's the least played character in the game? I'm all ears. Because as far as I can tell, his formula just doesn't work, and this has been discussed before by multiple people on these forums and on other mediums. I'm trying to see it fixed, but it seems people are incredibly adamant about being permissive of it, instead. I don't know how anyone can set the bar so low.

Nobody's answered my final question in my post, so until that's done, I don't see a point in conversing here about this any further. I still have no idea what you're trying to defend other than mediocrity, and I'm not interested in that. People are still overall unsatisfied by this character. We're clearly not on the same page regarding Walter, that the end result should be a new influx of players interested in playing him and his recurring complaints being directly addressed, and I'm not on your side if that somehow offends you. I want improvement for more players, not less, and I don't want the same complaints about the character perpetuated until this game's lifespan ends. Thanks, but I'll pass. But if you want to fight for failure, have fun. I gotta go travel for Crimbus festivities anyway.

These forums are so weird.

People have come up with all kinds of complaints about Walter's design (perk soup, random downsides, etc.) and to be frank I don't believe most of them because they don't hold up to scrutiny. Honestly, the main reason that I think people dislike playing him is mismanaged expectations. When you start off with a slingshot, the natural assumption is that this is a ranged character with a combat-viable weapon, and then you find out that the windup time is a pain even without lag and you can't kill two frogs with the ammo you've been given. And then you notice that there are tiers of ammo, leading to the next false assumption, which is that upgrading your ammo will make the slingshot a stand-alone weapon, which it would not, at least before the beta (gold ammo does spear damage (ignoring the windup time), marble is somewhat useful in fights but expensive, thulecite rounds are decent but such a jump in progression). When this assumption likewise proved to be wrong, people threw up their hands and switched to something else.

So Klei had two choices with the slingshot: one, either home in on ammos with unique debuffs like the already-existing poop pellets, and make it clear that the slingshot isn't your main weapon. Two, make him into the ranged combat character that everyone thinks he is, reduce the painful windup time, and give him some intermediate damage-dealing ammos and AOE. They went with the second one, as we can see from the tree, although they tried to have their cake and eat it too by giving him more slow-downs. I'm ambivalent about it--personally, I would rather combat not be the central focus of Walter's skill tree, and am eagerly awaiting the Woby and scout part--but I can't deny the euphoria that the reduced windup time on a modded slingshot and a single craft of 30 rounds gave me when it came out. And honestly, I think that that's enough to get more people to play him. If people were disappointed in him not being a ranged fighter before, that complaint has been addressed. I would also disagree that he's pigeonholed in a way that the other survivors aren't, since he can in fact do both ranged and melee fighting while they can only do various forms of melee.

That being said: I'm not opposed to the sort of thing you're suggesting, as long as it isn't just a flat melee damage boost and/or doesn't punish people for using the slingshot and forgoing melee. Hell, make melee hits charge his shots while we're at it, as long as we've got the charge mechanic going on. I'm not gonna use it, but have fun.

On the other note of "why are Walter discussions like this", I'm not sure if you're asking a rhetorical question, but if not: it sucks to have people constantly telling you how bad your character is, especially in a multiplayer game where it's your teammates who are making fun of you as soon as you join the world. A lot of times the criticism, as I've previously mentioned, doesn't make a whole lot of sense and, instead of more constructive suggestions, it leads into "Walter was a mistake and he should be deleted entirely". Because of all this, it is easy to get defensive.

10 minutes ago, IAmAFurrz said:

yes. incoherent is bad, now there is a clear direction they're making him go in and the bad design is part of his incohesion

I'm not sure how much I want to dignify someone who's only played 1 hour of Walter and yet acts like they know everything there is to know about him, but I guess I'm wasting time on here already, so might as well ask: how was Walter's design before the skill tree incoherent? And wouldn't going against his preexisting design in the skill tree make him actually incoherent?

[_mylilsunshine_]

somehow this thread got almost 2k views and a decent amount of unique comments (non-repeat commenters). maybe we need more clickbait and algorithm abuse so that posts about walter will always come out on top 

[gaymime]

4 hours ago, _mylilsunshine_ said:

somehow this thread got almost 2k views and a decent amount of unique comments (non-repeat commenters). maybe we need more clickbait and algorithm abuse so that posts about walter will always come out on top 

73 replies and counting x''D