Swap Characters & Such

[shigu.exe]

36 minutes ago, Primalflower said:

oh. I thought you were trolling, because you seem to have before. no offense.

With all due respect, I fail to see how anything OP said has to do with trolling. I'm glad you are enjoying Winona, and please don't let anything we say take away from that, but... this post isn't really about her? It's about the concept of a Swap Character, what makes them so, and the underlying rationale with which Klei designs characters. Don't conflate that with us criticizing the character as a whole or insinuating that there's no reason to pick her.

[Primalflower]

54 minutes ago, shigu.exe said:

I'm glad you are enjoying Winona, and please don't let anything we say take away from that, but... this post isn't really about her? It's about the concept of a Swap Character, what makes them so, and the underlying rationale with which Klei designs characters. Don't conflate that with us criticizing the character as a whole or insinuating that there's no reason to pick her.

Two be fair, I was responding to this which was specifically about winona - I was continuing conversation - that stemmed from your comment about winona - talking about winona some more and offering more of my perspective on it

idk what to say about the trolling thing, this is a bit of an awkward position, other than saying i'm sorry again, I just saw a post from this guy the other day that seemed to be pretty explicitly trolling so i expected the same here   I had seen the same sort of thing before from other people so I thought the same thing instinctively, i didnt mean it as a judge of character  and i already gave them a real honest response trying to engage with them about the thing that we were trying to talk about

[Debruh]

8 hours ago, Vinja said:

sister mains wicker and she likes when she doesn't have to run all the way back to base to read a book because a Maxwell thats already there can read it. It's not a bad thing

Yes, that's why I suggested that a Maxwell can read it while a Wicker exists in the world. A whole character being shafted isn't really a good thing

[flamboyant wolf]

While I personally quite enjoy Winona(perhaps one of my favourite characters atm but I kinda play all of em nowadays), I couldn't agree more about the Wickerbottom thing. Like, it's kinda silly: one of the strongest characters in the game, can use the entire kit of another pretty strong character. Just like that.

Like, I don't think that's "teamwork", much of the opposite really. Teamwork would be Wicker growing out the resources for Maxwell to gather, or Maxwell (and possibly another player) utilising shadow storage to deliver Wicker some books on the go, or even Maxwell and Wicker sharing the first bone helm because they both have various ways to benefit from it, instead of Maxwell using it to both empower himself and make Wicker completely irrelevant.

[Edible Coal]

12 hours ago, Evelo said:

The Celestial Portal was a mistake.

actually no, it exsist so we can see the flaw of the character

[viblym]

12 hours ago, Primalflower said:

I'm rereading this stuff, and I don't think I'm missing any kind of point here, and if I am, I would genuinely like to hear it again. I described how winona is uniquely good at the things she does in direct response to the point in your original post where you say that winona's skill tree is only QOL perks that are "just nice" I described anecdotes that directly contradict this just in the sense that you wouldn't have been able to do the things that I enjoy doing as winona as anyone else. This is me directly refuting the claims that are in the post. I responded to the idea that winona is unengaging to play by describing that the idea that item incentives never lose meaning for her because for the specific niches that they fall into, there is nothing better that she could use. I did not describe that Winona has good things to postulate that her things aren't bad, I described this to make a point about how winona has a kit that is engaging to me because its really good at the things it does and it makes me want to play as her for her unique experience.

I feel like it kind of defeats the purpose of the post to have to rephrase everything I did to be isolated from what it was. But I'm trying to say that Winona's skill tree was designed to prevent people from swapping her, while still making her a items based character, something that isn't very fun. Your reasons for staying as Winona aren't going to be Winona herself, they're her items, the only thing that's stopping you from swapping to a character you'd like more (more character based incentives) is the fact that some of her mechanisms that people wanted and liked (Telebrella and Telepad) are locked to her, something klei did specifically because they wanted to avoid the swapping issue. They gave Winona a repainted version of something Wagstaff had in DS, they gave Winona WINBOTS, because that's what people have wanted, it's something they KNOW people wanted. So if you know people want something, why not give it to one of the most requested for rework characters so people have a reason to play her, without actually thinking of ways to make her interesting on her own? It's not about those items being bad, it's about those items being slapped onto her and the expectation to go "well Winona is actually BETTER at what she does.. now you have a reason to play as her :D" when playing as Winona was never supposed to just be for the catapults, yknow? If you want people to play a character and not swap to a character for one item, you don't just give them MORE items, you make that character more fun, so when or if someone goes to swap to that character, they might discover that playing as them is... actually a bit fun! Hey I might stay as Winona because she's more than just her tools, she can do other things than these structures! But that didn't happen.

(sorry for the late response btw I was busy last night and I have family in the hospital so I wanted to wait till I could write something out)

[Primalflower]

1 hour ago, viblym said:

I feel like it kind of defeats the purpose of the post to have to rephrase everything I did to be isolated from what it was. But I'm trying to say that Winona's skill tree was designed to prevent people from swapping her, while still making her a items based character, something that isn't very fun. Your reasons for staying as Winona aren't going to be Winona herself, they're her items, the only thing that's stopping you from swapping to a character you'd like more (more character based incentives) is the fact that some of her mechanisms that people wanted and liked (Telebrella and Telepad) are locked to her, something klei did specifically because they wanted to avoid the swapping issue. They gave Winona a repainted version of something Wagstaff had in DS, they gave Winona WINBOTS, because that's what people have wanted, it's something they KNOW people wanted. So if you know people want something, why not give it to one of the most requested for rework characters so people have a reason to play her, without actually thinking of ways to make her interesting on her own? It's not about those items being bad, it's about those items being slapped onto her and the expectation to go "well Winona is actually BETTER at what she does.. now you have a reason to play as her :D" when playing as Winona was never supposed to just be for the catapults, yknow? If you want people to play a character and not swap to a character for one item, you don't just give them MORE items, you make that character more fun, so when or if someone goes to swap to that character, they might discover that playing as them is... actually a bit fun! Hey I might stay as Winona because she's more than just her tools, she can do other things than these structures! But that didn't happen.

(sorry for the late response btw I was busy last night and I have family in the hospital so I wanted to wait till I could write something out)

But thats just it. This is what i was trying to talk against when i stated that i disagree with the ideas you put forth about item based incentives. Winona's items are basically intrinsic to her even if they come in the form of items because there is nothing that ever replaces them. They're as intrinsic as wortoxes soul hopping. Don't you get me?

Winona's options take the form of items, but they're still just the unique options that the character affords you just as much as wigfrid's multiplier, since they're never replaced by anything and give you unique things you can do with them, they're just something you can unequip. It's like if wortox spawned with something he could equip to make the soul hop appear. It does not make wortox any less compelling for this to be the case.

[viblym]

23 minutes ago, Primalflower said:

But thats just it. This is what i was trying to talk against when i stated that i disagree with the ideas you put forth about item based incentives. Winona's items are basically intrinsic to her even if they come in the form of items because there is nothing that ever replaces them. They're as intrinsic as wortoxes soul hopping. Don't you get me?

Winona's options take the form of items, but they're still just the unique options that the character affords you just as much as wigfrid's multiplier, since they're never replaced by anything and give you unique things you can do with them, they're just something you can unequip. It's like if wortox spawned with something he could equip to make the soul hop appear. It does not make wortox any less compelling for this to be the case.

they're not intrinsic to her they just ARE her because they never gave her anything else

[Primalflower]

Just now, viblym said:

they're not intrinsic to her they just ARE her because they never gave her anything else

they did give her other things, these things that they gave her are the other things - they exist basically only for her and make her gameplay unique in practice just like the examples given of characters with intrinsic incentives to play, much like wortox's soul hopping or wigfrid's damage multiplier, the difference really feels moot and for myself as someone who plays winona a lot It's hard not to sort them in the exact same category

[Deadsweet]

This is a solid post. I feel like having a common definition for a "swap character" that we can all agree on would be more conducive to productive discussions.

[viblym]

4 hours ago, Primalflower said:

they did give her other things, these things that they gave her are the other things - they exist basically only for her and make her gameplay unique in practice just like the examples given of characters with intrinsic incentives to play, much like wortox's soul hopping or wigfrid's damage multiplier, the difference really feels moot and for myself as someone who plays winona a lot It's hard not to sort them in the exact same category

her only exclusive items are her controller and telebrella, the rest of the stuff can be used as any other character once you swap

[lowercase skye]

5 hours ago, viblym said:

they're not intrinsic to her they just ARE her because they never gave her anything else

For the sake of conversation, would you feel differently about this if instead of the Portasol existing, Winona could set spots on the ground using her mind and then later crush a Gizmo in her hands to teleport to that spot? No character specific craftable, just an inherent ability akin to soul-hopping. Because I agree with Primalflower that the Portasol seems so integral to Winona's gameplay that it may as well be a part of her, from what I've seen. To me it sounds like the issue here might be more about the theming of an item that you pick up.

[Primalflower]

51 minutes ago, viblym said:

her only exclusive items are her controller and telebrella, the rest of the stuff can be used as any other character once you swap

No, like how I had stated before about wickerbottom, winbot can only be used by other characters as part of a larger, specific, automated setup. Nobody else can use winbot in the same way winona can, anywhere in the world, on demand. this particular ability is intrinsic to winona. only she can interface with these items in this way, this ability is intrinsic to her

Like, is woby fetch an item incentive ability...? You only get her to do that once you build a little woby badge station, but once you do, she does her lazy forager thing anywhere you go and it isn't dependant on any item. Winona, in much of the same way, needs to build a little thing first before she can use the ability, but once she does, she can use this thing anywhere and in a way that no other character can. (i find this engaging by the way)

[Vinja]

16 hours ago, Debruh said:

Yes, that's why I suggested that a Maxwell can read it while a Wicker exists in the world. A whole character being shafted isn't really a good thing

Why can Maxwell only read when wicker is there? Doesn't make any sense at all. 

[Pruinae]

40 minutes ago, Vinja said:

Why can Maxwell only read when wicker is there? Doesn't make any sense at all. 

I mean, if they want to go that route there are ways to make it make sense.

"I am not allowed, not after the "incident"..." "She only allows me to read this under supervision." lmao

[viblym]

2 hours ago, Primalflower said:

No, like how I had stated before about wickerbottom, winbot can only be used by other characters as part of a larger, specific, automated setup. Nobody else can use winbot in the same way winona can, anywhere in the world, on demand. this particular ability is intrinsic to winona. only she can interface with these items in this way, this ability is intrinsic to her

Like, is woby fetch an item incentive ability...? You only get her to do that once you build a little woby badge station, but once you do, she does her lazy forager thing anywhere you go and it isn't dependant on any item. Winona, in much of the same way, needs to build a little thing first before she can use the ability, but once she does, she can use this thing anywhere and in a way that no other character can. (i find this engaging by the way)

1: Wobot
2: Woby isn't an item

[Primalflower]

9 minutes ago, viblym said:

1: Wobot
2: Woby isn't an item

there can only be one wobot in the world, even beyond the thought that there could be more than 2 people in the server, or how winbot is naturally faster than wobot, or how you wobot requires scrap to be repaired, something that winbot does not require, meaning you can only use wobot for a moment after defeating nightmare and then scrappy werepig, and not any time else pre-rifts, winbot can, once again, be duplicated. there can be more than one winbot in the world at once. Bringing up wobot as a counter to this point is such a non-argument that completely ignores the in-practice nature of this argument it's insane, it's like saying that lazy forager exists and this counters winbot (it does not)

If your answer to my secondary paragraph is just that woby isn't an item and that makes the difference for you then i have no idea what to tell you because again, they are functionally identical, down to both woby and winona needing to do some ingame stuff before the perk becomes active, genuinely the only difference is the literal physical form they take. I think you just don't prefer the presentation and that's fine but, once again, i simply put disagree entirely with the architecture of your argument about item based incentives and intrinsic incentives, because it just doesn't work like that. I am living proof of this

[viblym]

2 hours ago, lowercase skye said:

For the sake of conversation, would you feel differently about this if instead of the Portasol existing, Winona could set spots on the ground using her mind and then later crush a Gizmo in her hands to teleport to that spot? No character specific craftable, just an inherent ability akin to soul-hopping. Because I agree with Primalflower that the Portasol seems so integral to Winona's gameplay that it may as well be a part of her, from what I've seen. To me it sounds like the issue here might be more about the theming of an item that you pick up.

We are getting so far off the point of my post it's actually saddening me.
You're going for a Wanda comparison here and I think it's worth noting that Wanda is a mechanically diverse character, Winona is not. Even if you take away her Backtrek watches she still has unique character interactions like her age, sanity buffer, damage modifier with shadows, etc. Her teleportation is a plus but if all Wanda had was her alarming clock and her backtrek watch it'd feel a little hollow. If Winona's portasol feels integral to her as a character it's a bit sad because that is something you have to choose to perk into, is something not everyone is going to perk into, and only really serves you as a cost effective telelocator staff. You are playing Winona for an item and not for Winona herself. Which is the issue.

4 minutes ago, Primalflower said:

there can only be one wobot in the world, even beyond the thought that there could be more than 2 people in the server, or how winbot is naturally faster than wobot, or how you wobot requires scrap to be repaired, something that winbot does not require, meaning you can only use wobot for a moment after defeating nightmare and then scrappy werepig, and not any time else pre-rifts, winbot can, once again, be duplicated. there can be more than one winbot in the world at once. Bringing up wobot as a counter to this point is such a non-argument that completely ignores the in-practice nature of this argument it's insane, it's like saying that lazy forager exists and this counters winbot (it does not)

If your answer to my secondary paragraph is just that woby isn't an item and that makes the difference for you then i have no idea what to tell you because again, they are functionally identical, down to both woby and winona needing to do some ingame stuff before the perk becomes active, genuinely the only difference is the literal physical form they take. I think you just don't prefer the presentation and that's fine but, once again, i simply put disagree entirely with the architecture of your argument about item based incentives and intrinsic incentives, because it just doesn't work like that. I am living proof of this

Then why didn't people play Winona before her skill tree

[Primalflower]

2 minutes ago, viblym said:

Then why didn't people play Winona before her skill tree

Because her telebrella/rose glasses and winbots (items that either only she can intrinsically use or only she can use in the particular way she can) did not exist, not to mention her character-specific interaction with her catapults that allow her to mass harvest using planar strike. The reason why people actively play winona in the modern day is in order to use the things that only she can use and are thus effectively her intrinsic abilities, or use the things she has in the specific way that only she can, much like any other character

7 minutes ago, viblym said:

You are playing Winona for an item and not for Winona herself. Which is the issue.

but if the item is only available to winona then that item is as good as intrinsic to her because it functionally does not exist for anyone else i dont know how this isnt getting across

[Tarnishedmax]

7 minutes ago, Primalflower said:

but if the item is only available to winona then that item is as good as intrinsic to her because it functionally does not exist for anyone else i dont know how this isnt getting across

the fact that you admitted that you didnt even read the post at the start just makes these subsequent responses more and more confusing, you keep arguing about her being good and fun but that its just not the point at all? nobody is saying Winona is bad or particularly unfun for being item based, its mostly an argument of how this is a bad design and doesn't reward people for staying as the character itself, there is nothing you do for being Winona specifically, her best items are locked on an "alignment" so you don't even have freedom on how you want to build the skill tree because of this, rose glasses are a really cool way of making Winona unique, her having bridges, revives without inventory drop, wormhole relocation, darkness immunity and just farming pure horro/nightmare fuel is genuinely cool and it doesn't take away from her unique gadgets, the problem is that you cannot get those at the same time as the items, its basically forcing you to take the passive Winona play style, just imagine is Wigfrid didn't have any uniqueness going on and she could only craft the elding spear and cheap armor, would she still be cool? yeah but that doesn't mean her design wouldn't be just bad.

Winona feels too passive herself and this is incredibly noticeable in multiplayer, there is never a moment where i think "i wish Winona was here" unlike any other character that offers something unique, Winona is a character that doesn't need to be active or do anything, her items are just all QOL and you don't really need her as a whole, you just want her to build stuff and teleport items.

[Primalflower]

23 minutes ago, Tarnishedmax said:

you keep arguing about her being good and fun but that its just not the point at all?

 

Quote

I did not describe that Winona has good things to postulate that her things aren't bad, I described this to make a point about how winona has a kit that is engaging to me because its really good at the things it does and it makes me want to play as her for her unique experience.

 

23 minutes ago, Tarnishedmax said:

doesn't reward people for staying as the character itself, there is nothing you do for being Winona specifically

 

Quote

But thats just it. This is what i was trying to talk against when i stated that i disagree with the ideas you put forth about item based incentives. Winona's items are basically intrinsic to her even if they come in the form of items because there is nothing that ever replaces them. They're as intrinsic as wortoxes soul hopping. Don't you get me?

Winona's options take the form of items, but they're still just the unique options that the character affords you just as much as wigfrid's multiplier, since they're never replaced by anything and give you unique things you can do with them, they're just something you can unequip. It's like if wortox spawned with something he could equip to make the soul hop appear. It does not make wortox any less compelling for this to be the case.

like how I had stated before about wickerbottom, winbot can only be used by other characters as part of a larger, specific, automated setup. Nobody else can use winbot in the same way winona can, anywhere in the world, on demand. this particular ability is intrinsic to winona. only she can interface with these items in this way, this ability is intrinsic to her

if the item is only available to winona then that item is as good as intrinsic to her because it functionally does not exist for anyone else i dont know how this isnt getting across

three separate posts arguing this one, I don't know how you could have missed it and put forth this point

23 minutes ago, Tarnishedmax said:

her best items are locked on an "alignment" so you don't even have freedom on how you want to build the skill tree because of this, rose glasses are a really cool way of making Winona unique, her having bridges, revives without inventory drop, wormhole relocation, darkness immunity and just farming pure horro/nightmare fuel is genuinely cool and it doesn't take away from her unique gadgets, the problem is that you cannot get those at the same time as the items

I think this is far more of a complaint with skill trees in of themselves rather than anything from winona in particular or how swappy or not she is, which, as I have stated several times, is what i am talking about specifically. this argument is specifically on winona and it always has been. if you hate this choose-your-own winona aspect of her, that's understandable, but

23 minutes ago, Tarnishedmax said:

Winona is a character that doesn't need to be active or do anything, her items are just all QOL and you don't really need her as a whole, you just want her to build stuff

 

Quote

I described how winona is uniquely good at the things she does in direct response to the point in your original post where you say that winona's skill tree is only QOL perks that are "just nice" I described anecdotes that directly contradict this just in the sense that you wouldn't have been able to do the things that I enjoy doing as winona as anyone else. This is me directly refuting the claims that are in the post. I responded to the idea that winona is unengaging to play by describing that the idea that item incentives never lose meaning for her because for the specific niches that they fall into, there is nothing better that she could use.

please read my posts for the love of god this thread does not need any more bloat

23 minutes ago, Tarnishedmax said:

the fact that you admitted that you didnt even read the post at the start

oh and by the way incase it wasn't clear by me stating it before, i did read the post after OP responded to my own, I had just mentioned in passing that I had passed on it initially before moving on to properly engage. Note that I didn't explicitly dismiss OP at any point, my first post in this thread was me trying to actively have a few words about a tangential issue that I had something productive to talk about. The moment that I did acknowledge OP, I gave them an honest to god response after reading the post for real. I feel like you have to be taking me in such bad faith to write such words about me after reading 5 trillion words from me genuinely engaging with the topics that explicitly pertain to the original post that I could not have made without having read it

[lowercase skye]

5 hours ago, Tarnishedmax said:

the fact that you admitted that you didnt even read the post at the start

words that were never said once

[Debruh]

7 hours ago, Vinja said:

Why can Maxwell only read when wicker is there? Doesn't make any sense at all. 

You can make up any reason. Hee handwriting is bad so he needs her to actually understand what she's written for example. Just put that in a few examination quotes and done.

Doesn't mak3 s3nse that he can use the lunar book at all for example, still does

[Vinja]

19 minutes ago, Debruh said:

You can make up any reason. Hee handwriting is bad so he needs her to actually understand what she's written for example. Just put that in a few examination quotes and done.

Doesn't mak3 s3nse that he can use the lunar book at all for example, still does

What makes you think Maxwell wouldn't be able to use lunar magic? Klei gave him a lunar skin so it doesn't seem like they have a problem with him and lunar magic

6 hours ago, Pruinae said:

I mean, if they want to go that route there are ways to make it make sense.

"I am not allowed, not after the "incident"..." "She only allows me to read this under supervision." lmao

I mean if they wanted to they could bs a reason I guess, but it goes against the team aspect of the game in my opinion. Probably why it's never been changed

[Debruh]

Just now, Vinja said:

What makes you think Maxwell wouldn't be able to use lunar magic? Klei gave him a lunar skin so it doesn't seem like they have a problem with him and lunar magic

Because that lunar magic, specifically that book, literally strengthens the entity in opposition to Charlie, who he has a deal with and is the source of things like his shadow prison, which you can see has roses in it.

Skins are weird, because while a part of them seems to be canon, if every skin and every part of it is, then somehow Abby's flower changes shape and type frequently? The flower on Wendy's head, sure. But Abby's flower? So it's not like they're an ideal place to get ideas from.

Also, one of his skins is William Carter, which considering his ego, I highly doubt he would expose his original identity, or even just dress as it.