Wendy feedback - skill tree is overtuned

[Koomin]

I've mentioned in in threads before, but since it is now almost the end of beta I'm providing final feedback that personally I am really dissatisfied with Wendy's skill tree due to the power level being far too high.  I know a lot of people have other opinions and that is ok, but sharing my voice here as well in a way that hopefully can be taken into account for the final touches this week.  

I think that Klei got affected by the large amount of spam and attacks in the initial feedback and overcorrected the skill tree way too far in the other direction, to result in a tree that is very overtuned and takes a lot away from the fun and interest of the character.  A lot of people including myself were not initially engaging with the piles of threads calling for buff after buff due to not wanting to argue/disagree since it's not a particularly enjoyable experience for anyone, and thinking that Klei would be able to parse through it and target a good balance point.  Unfortunately, it seems that the hoard of clamours for buffs at all costs accompanied by insults and the like was not something that was able to be correctly handled and that balance target was not hit, and has now resulted in this.

We currently have a tree with top tier in game DPS, basically ignoring and killing all mobs without effort, extreme Abigail tankiness and survivability, crowd control, trivialized costs, and randomly high amounts of utility skills thrown in for both Abigail and Wendy.  All at once.  The more I test it the more ridiculous it all seems.  Some of the buffs were definitely warranted, but all of them together, on top of condensing the number of skills down so that you can access so many of them at once was an extreme overshoot.

I know it is difficult to reduce the power of skills once they are in beta and that that was why the skills were initially underpowered, but unfortunately after the massive overcorrection it is really needed.  I was pretty excited for the skill tree, but if it is released in this state where I have to either refuse to use my insight and ignore the fun new options or wander around demolishing everything without effort, I don't really have any interest left in the character. Even if I move on to another character though in search of something not trivializing the game, I'll be tailed in every public game with piles of Wendys continuing to trivialize the game and destroying the fun character diversity.  Since beta feedback is taken into account, please consider that there are numerous people that care about the character with this opinion and consider adjusting the power level here.  I really don't want to read through another patch notes page filled with buffs while I get more and more disappointed each line I read.

 

[SilverSpoon]

If it is your feedback, I think you should specifically write about what currently Abigail can do and what the problems are with it.

"tree with top tier in game DPS, basically ignoring and killing all mobs without effort"? Is that really true? Even Lardee's video didn't come to killing bosses...

Also the about Nerf should be specific. What kind and how level Nerf would make you satisfied?

And you should eliminate bunch of curse you may have about anything that doesn't please you. That's feedback.

[Steorra]

I know we might have some different options about this topic. But I just want to say that I was trying to rise people's attention toward current Cursed Vex, but it seems there have few people do care about it... People attended to think Cursed Vex is fine when Abi have survival issue, others think that Abi have no survival issues for them so Cursed Vex is completely a reward for them. Feeling a bit helpless about it. No idea why this skill should be a great enhancement for pre-rift but low effective for post-rift especially it need pure horrors for their recipe.

12 minutes ago, SilverSpoon said:

"tree with top tier in game DPS, basically ignoring and killing all mobs without effort"? Is that really true? Even Lardee's video didn't come to killing bosses...

Cursed Vex have this issue for those completely veteran players who need no care about the survival of Abi. This elixir makes Wendy to have a similar DPS as Wolfgang for non-planar mobs in theory. If a player who could ignoring the punishment of Abi's absence, then Cursed Vex would be debatable for non-planar mobs. The point is that "was the Wolfgang DPS is broken for non-planar mobs or not" I guess.

But at least it is not "without effort". It is experiences needed. Once a player have enough experiences to ensure Abi's presence then it could be "seems like no effort", but the experiences is still working and it is the effort.

I hope the balance would based on average players but not on completely new comers or completely veteran. So I personally think Cursed Vex need decreased its effect for pre-rift but increasing for post-rift. An average player of Wendy would still have chance to face the absence of Abi in battle, which means the higher DPS from Cused Vex is just a reward to the challenge of "keep Abi being presence". But it should not become too OP generally and it should not focusing on pre-rift gameplay when it need post-rift materials.

[Dingle]

She's pretty overtuned. That was my final feedback in my big playthrough thread. Won't repeat it all here, but I was able to stomp fuelweaver and more on my second playthrough. I was never a Wendy main, and hadn't played her in at least a year. She feels stronger than Wanda or Wolfgang to me, now, while offering more utility than Wolf.

She's not quite "ridiculously broken" overtuned. But she's a strong character that got a weak character's skill tree due to brigading, if that makes sense. Brigading from many people that I suspect don't play the beta.

Cursed Vex is attainable pre-rift, as nightmare werepig drops pure horror and recipes to dupe it with green gems. Also, vex is extremely cheap, it's 1 pure horror each. My plan as her in future would be killing nmwp and fuelweaver asap, as Vex is a big damage buff, and she can really blow up fuelweaver.

I don't know if Klei would dare nerf her at this point. Let's see if they buff her more.

[WenericMember]

What aspects are overtuned? That's the key thing here.

I still think the Vengeful ghost needs buffs speciifcally when Wendy is using it, Mourning Glory crafts need buffs, and team spirit needs QOL, but the only perks I'd call broken are Blessed Sisturn 3 and possibly the alignment skills.

Wendy's only real new utility comes from 2 skills - Haunt and Wraith's Wreath. Haunt isn't actually unique to her, just more convenient, and none of Wraith's skill's are particularly overtuned in that regard.

I think the only real issue with the tree is Blessed Sisturn 3, which kinda breaks the balance of the alignment skills, but you seem to think it's more than that.

You aren't really explaining this properly.

[EctoPlaza]

I thought the "complain for no reason" phase of the beta ended awhile ago.

[Echsrick]

it alsol dit kind of hurt the other characters of feeling often ignored during the beta

[WenericMember]

1 minute ago, Echsrick said:

it alsol dit kind of hurt the other characters of feeling often ignored during the beta

idk what you mean by that. Wortox has had almost every major suggestion considered - teleporting while carrying heavy objects, inclination perk reworks, loosening requirements etc. His tree was just  in the best place to begin with since the start of beta.

Walter's still getting immense changes to his tree- the Woby line is getting reworked and he's getting additional new skills, similarly to Wendy in the immediate future.

They also all have their own developers. Wendy's tree is not taking away from the other two's.

[Echsrick]

10 minutes ago, WenericMember said:

His tree was just  in the best place to begin with since the start of beta.

knapsack

[EctoPlaza]

9 minutes ago, WenericMember said:

They also all have their own developers. Wendy's tree is not taking away from the other two's.

I mean to be fair, it's possible for people to simply choose not to believe what someone says, even if it is fact.

[WenericMember]

3 minutes ago, Echsrick said:

knapsack

I did say almost, and there is still time in the beta for that to get changed. The point is Wortox never needed the same amount of work as Wendy & Walter.

3 minutes ago, EctoPlaza said:

I mean to be fair, it's possible for people to simply choose not to believe what someone says, even if it is fact.

I don't really think its fair to assume the dev's are lying about the content pipeline.

[Koomin]

1 hour ago, Dingle said:

She's pretty overtuned. That was my final feedback in my big playthrough thread. Won't repeat it all here, but I was able to stomp fuelweaver and more on my second playthrough. I was never a Wendy main, and hadn't played her in at least a year. She feels stronger than Wanda or Wolfgang to me, now, while offering more utility than Wolf.

She's not quite "ridiculously broken" overtuned. But she's a strong character that got a weak character's skill tree due to brigading, if that makes sense. Brigading from many people that I suspect don't play the beta.

Cursed Vex is attainable pre-rift, as nightmare werepig drops pure horror and recipes to dupe it with green gems. Also, vex is extremely cheap, it's 1 pure horror each. My plan as her in future would be killing nmwp and fuelweaver asap, as Vex is a big damage buff, and she can really blow up fuelweaver.

I don't know if Klei would dare nerf her at this point. Let's see if they buff her more.

Your thread is a great place for people to read through for in-depth play testing that came to this same conclusion that people are requesting.  I did not personally make my own in-depth summary, but encourage people that are looking for that to read through someone's experience with all of the skills in a play by play summary:

 

1 hour ago, SilverSpoon said:

If it is your feedback, I think you should specifically write about what currently Abigail can do and what the problems are with it.

"tree with top tier in game DPS, basically ignoring and killing all mobs without effort"? Is that really true? Even Lardee's video didn't come to killing bosses...

Also the about Nerf should be specific. What kind and how level Nerf would make you satisfied?

And you should eliminate bunch of curse you may have about anything that doesn't please you. That's feedback.

I've shared these thoughts on many threads, and did not want to create an extremely long initial post that no one would read.  Main summary of things that are way too strong is Shadow Abigail in general, Abigail's tankiness and survivability, reviving Abigail back to full health immediately, and condensing all of the skills to be so easily obtainable. 

I also don't want to derail the whole thread though with arguing specific skills and their relation to Woody treeguards or speedruns or something like has happened in other threads.  Overall, the tree just gives too much at too little cost when put together and play tested.  I would again suggest reading through @Dingles thread for a good summary.

I don't understand what "you should eliminate bunch of curse you may have" means.  Maybe this was a translation issue, but I didn't curse at anything and am just providing feedback, and did my best to say that people that have other opinions are also valid.

[WenericMember]

11 minutes ago, Koomin said:

Your thread is a great place for people to read through for in-depth play testing that came to this same conclusion that people are requesting.  I did not personally make my own in-depth summary, but encourage people that are looking for that to read through someone's experience with all of the skills in a play by play summary:

 

I've shared these thoughts on many threads, and did not want to create an extremely long initial post that no one would read.  Main summary of things that are way too strong is Shadow Abigail in general, Abigail's tankiness and survivability, reviving Abigail back to full health immediately, and condensing all of the skills to be so easily obtainable. 

I also don't want to derail the whole thread though with arguing specific skills and their relation to Woody treeguards or speedruns or something like has happened in other threads.  Overall, the tree just gives too much at too little cost when put together and play tested.  I would again suggest reading through @Dingles thread for a good summary.

I don't understand what "you should eliminate bunch of curse you may have" means.  Maybe this was a translation issue, but I didn't curse at anything and am just providing feedback, and did my best to say that people that have other opinions are also valid.

Yeah Blessed Sisturn 3 is overtuned, and Ghastly Spirit needs to be HP not % based. 
I'd agree with

• Making her tree a little more insight intensive
• Ghastly spirit, when used, restores the numeric hp, not hp%.
• Blessed Spirit nerfs

[Dingle]

28 minutes ago, WenericMember said:

idk what you mean by that. Wortox has had almost every major suggestion considered - teleporting while carrying heavy objects, inclination perk reworks, loosening requirements etc. His tree was just  in the best place to begin with since the start of beta.

Walter's still getting immense changes to his tree- the Woby line is getting reworked and he's getting additional new skills, similarly to Wendy in the immediate future.

They also all have their own developers. Wendy's tree is not taking away from the other two's.

Naughty was really messed up, there's still unfortunate echoes of this. Neutral too, though only Carmine is really bad now.

[EctoPlaza]

24 minutes ago, WenericMember said:

I did say almost, and there is still time in the beta for that to get changed. The point is Wortox never needed the same amount of work as Wendy & Walter.

I don't really think its fair to assume the dev's are lying about the content pipeline.

You misunderstand. I'm saying that, despite Klei confirming that every character has equal treatment, people will choose to ignore that fact. 

[WenericMember]

2 minutes ago, EctoPlaza said:

You misunderstand. I'm saying that, despite Klei confirming that every character has equal treatment, people will choose to ignore that fact. 

Ah. yeah I agree with that.

[DaDa_waw]

To be honest, 'too high a value' is often just the easiest part to adjust.
If only for this reason, many people complain that Wendy's skill tree is not good enough, then all this discussion is unnecessary.
We can find a collection of recommended posts that you can read for a whole day https://forums.kleientertainment.com/forums/topic/162980-wendys-suggestion-post-collection-since-december-12th/
You have everything from design ideas to design methods, aesthetic design, and even homemade mods, but in the end, you ignore everything they have worked hard for, leaving only one sentence: 'The reason I am not satisfied is that many people have made Wendy's skill tree value higher.' What a heart wrenching statement, but anyone who takes a second look at someone else's hard-earned article would not say such heartless words.
KLei turned Wendy's skill tree into what it is now. You threw the conflict onto the person who suggested it, but didn't see that Klei's response to so many high-quality suggestions was so perfunctory. How much of the content do you think is in line with the player's suggestions?
Making butterflies with mourning glory? Using butterflies to turn Shadow Abigail into a multiplier monster? Turn the moon Abigail into a fool? Why are so many people dissatisfied? Have you really thought about this question seriously? As someone who doesn't even want to test themselves.

[Koomin]

Editing this post since request was taken care of, carry on everyone

[EctoPlaza]

Just now, Koomin said:

Is it possible for the comments about regions and speedrun cheating and stuff to be deleted here without locking the thread?  This is incredibly off topic. I'd really appreciate it if we discussed how the skill tree is tuned instead.

Perhaps a moderator could manually hide each off-topic comment, though it's usually more likely for a whole thread to be locked when a conversation devolves into personal attacks. 

[Koomin]

47 minutes ago, DaDa_waw said:

To be honest, 'too high a value' is often just the easiest part to adjust.
If only for this reason, many people complain that Wendy's skill tree is not good enough, then all this discussion is unnecessary.
We can find a collection of recommended posts that you can read for a whole day https://forums.kleientertainment.com/forums/topic/162980-wendys-suggestion-post-collection-since-december-12th/
You have everything from design ideas to design methods, aesthetic design, and even homemade mods, but in the end, you ignore everything they have worked hard for, leaving only one sentence: 'The reason I am not satisfied is that many people have made Wendy's skill tree value higher.' What a heart wrenching statement, but anyone who takes a second look at someone else's hard-earned article would not say such heartless words.
KLei turned Wendy's skill tree into what it is now. You threw the conflict onto the person who suggested it, but didn't see that Klei's response to so many high-quality suggestions was so perfunctory. How much of the content do you think is in line with the player's suggestions?
Making butterflies with mourning glory? Using butterflies to turn Shadow Abigail into a multiplier monster? Turn the moon Abigail into a fool? Why are so many people dissatisfied? Have you really thought about this question seriously? As someone who doesn't even want to test themselves.

I support multiple of the suggestions on that thread, and I'm definitely happy with changing things that can be improved. 

The point of this thread, though, is that while I do support some of that stuff, I will ultimately be disappointed with the skill tree if the power level is not significantly reduced.  It is definitely possible to support changing the effects of skills and optimizing the skill tree while still wanting a power reduction.

[Steorra]

5 hours ago, WenericMember said:

Haunt isn't actually unique to her,

Tbh this Huant ability for Abi is more powerful than people were though about it when against non-bosses mobs. But I've never seen some criticism like "OP" to this. Tbh this eas a bit strange for me especially when considering some members here were extremely hating a invisible/no cost fighting way (which Huant would resulted in but I'm okay with it)

[DaDa_waw]

13 minutes ago, Koomin said:

I support multiple of the suggestions on that thread, and I'm definitely happy with changing things that can be improved. 

The point of this thread, though, is that while I do support some of that stuff, I will ultimately be disappointed with the skill tree if the power level is not significantly reduced.  It is definitely possible to support changing the effects of skills and optimizing the skill tree while still wanting a power reduction.

I think this point can be postponed for discussion, because numerical adjustments need to be completed on a complete logical skill tree, otherwise it will only be a secondary damage to player trust, like the overcorrected Moon Abigail.

[Koomin]

5 hours ago, WenericMember said:

What aspects are overtuned? That's the key thing here.

I still think the Vengeful ghost needs buffs speciifcally when Wendy is using it, Mourning Glory crafts need buffs, and team spirit needs QOL, but the only perks I'd call broken are Blessed Sisturn 3 and possibly the alignment skills.

Wendy's only real new utility comes from 2 skills - Haunt and Wraith's Wreath. Haunt isn't actually unique to her, just more convenient, and none of Wraith's skill's are particularly overtuned in that regard.

I think the only real issue with the tree is Blessed Sisturn 3, which kinda breaks the balance of the alignment skills, but you seem to think it's more than that.

You aren't really explaining this properly.

Hey I discussed this in another comment but replying here as well:

I do agree that some skills can be strengthened, it's just not the topic of the thread, and I'm concerned about what happened for prior patches happening again if I do that.  Early in the beta I pointed out stuff I wanted strengthened and the compensatory things to be weakened, and they proudly announced they only strengthened stuff until we got where we are now.  I'm happy if they fix that stuff, so long as the overall power level is significantly decreased.

I didn't really want to have an initial post going through each skill and its merits since no one would read it, and since that is not the point of my statements.  For that though since you asked: Main summary of things that are way too strong is Shadow Abigail in general, Abigail's tankiness and survivability, reviving Abigail back to full health immediately, and condensing all of the skills to be so easily obtainable.  That last one is also pretty important: many of the skills are not obviously too strong, like scare and the wreath ones and the glory ones, but the shear amount that you can obtain at so little cost is too much after the recent patch.  It's difficult to have some sort of mathematical or objectively provable argument for you here, but I'd recommend reading Dingle's playthrough thread for an example of how that conclusion is reached.

[DaDa_waw]

11 minutes ago, Koomin said:

but I'd recommend reading Dingle's playthrough thread for an example of how that conclusion is reached.

Dingle's post largely avoided the world after the cracks, which is unsatisfactory. Wendy was already able to handle the world before the rift well without the skill tree, and understanding Wendy's skill tree solely based on this part is very one-sided. This should not be used as a reason for "having to weaken it to a large extent".

[Koomin]

4 minutes ago, DaDa_waw said:

Dingle's post avoids the world after the cracks, which is unsatisfactory. Wendy was already able to handle the world before the rift well without the skill tree, and understanding Wendy's skill tree solely based on this part is very one-sided. This should not be used as a supporting argument for "must be greatly weakened".

This section includes some testing of that, it is in fact there and she demolishes that part of the game too. 

Beyond that a bunch of posts have shown great use of the skill tree with rifts.  I have also tested it myself and come to the conclusion that it is also overtuned with rifts, I'm not just basing this whole thing on that thread. I am just pointing to it for people that want a thorough summary of a playthrough that comes to these conclusions, since I have not made one, and they did a really good job.

29 minutes ago, DaDa_waw said:

I think this point can be postponed for discussion, because numerical adjustments need to be completed on a complete logical skill tree, otherwise it will only be a secondary damage to player trust, like the overcorrected Moon Abigail.

This is the very end of the beta.  There is no option to postpone this discussion.  This is the last opportunity.