wendy Wendy Long Playtest World - RIFTS OPEN - 12/8 Start

[WenericMember]

On 1/19/2025 at 3:52 AM, Dingle said:

Posting last thoughts and feedback. This may be less in depth than some of my other feedback threads. Just low on time, and posting on phone.

Thoughts

3. Between this and previous playthroughs, I don't think I'd play Wolfgang anymore. You get the same single target dps, but with more setup (you need to kill nmwp and catch butterflies), and you need to learn the team spirit commands. In exchange for these, you get a lot more besides the single target dps. AOE, different types of utility, easy farming of various mob drop resources, group night vision if you take mg2, so on. At this point there's enough evidence and math to just laugh at anyone who tries to argue otherwise.

I guess the question is "is it ok that Wendy is the new, better Wolfgang, with a Floating Wolfgang near her?"

My answer: Maybe? She takes more skill. Now when people ask "So what's Wolfgang's disadvantage????" people can reply, "well, he's not Wendy".

Depends on what the devs want overall, I guess. Is the plan to buff even already strong characters, for some future post-post rift threats we will see, someday? Was that the plan at start of beta, or did it change due to the brigading? Is there even a long term plan, or are character updates and character balance more of a self contained, in the moment thing? I have no idea, and don't think the grand plan has ever been really stated.

5. Whatever you do to Blessed Sisturn 3, it has to be exactly as good as Potions 2 through 4. That is its direct competition in builds.

Lunar Abigail's been discussed already so won't mention her, but I mostly agree with your comments but for these two:

I don't think "as good as potions 2-4" is particularly the case, as that' costs 3-4 insight, whereas Blessed sisturn costs 1-3 (depending on your definitions.)

I personally think Wendy being capable of Wolfgang damage while having utility is ultimately health for the game, as long as Wendy needs skill to maintain thata output. (Especially as Wolf probably still has slightly higher DPS overall, but I'm not sure the exact theoretical and practical values). The issue isn't so much about Wendy's damage output, but how free Abigail's survivability is now.

Blessed Sisturn, Ghastly Experience and Shadow Abby's ridiculous  Planar Defense are the 3 main culprits IMO. As such I'd:

• Nerf Blessed sisturn in one of the many described ways (Reduce potion effectiveness, level 4 tied to lunar blossoms, whatever. Just keep the lunar blossom quests pls, Wendy actually making progress in reviving abigail is really important imo)
• Have Ghastly Experience maintain # not % upon use, so a level 1, 75 hp, level 1 abigail would become a 75 hp, level 3 abigail, instead of a 300 hp level 3 abigail. That way it would still take a full 30 seconds to revive a dead Abigail, which is still faster, but a huge hit to your DPS in combat.
• Rework Shadow Sisterhood 1 to remove the planar defense, and instead allow hex to deal planar damage. This helps cursed vexation post-rift, and significantly reduces shadow Abigail's bulk.
• Maybe disable Blessed Sisturn 3 while shadow Abigail is active. May not be necessary with the other 3 changes, but worth keeping in mind.

[Dingle]

38 minutes ago, WenericMember said:

I don't think "as good as potions 2-4" is particularly the case, as that' costs 3-4 insight, whereas Blessed sisturn costs 1-3 (depending on your definitions.)

I did not count Potions 1 for when I was comparing the insight point costs, since I personally would try to grab the Picnic Casket on any build.

[WenericMember]

36 minutes ago, Dingle said:

I did not count Potions 1 for when I was comparing the insight point costs, since I personally would try to grab the Picnic Casket on any build.

Ah, that makes sense.

[yuntunhemudu]

14 hours ago, Dingle said:

I think there's absolutely a niche for an Abigail alternative designed for Wendy players that don't want to learn the "high skill ceiling" parts of Wendy.

I think its pretty clear from the beta forums that this group doesn't like Gestalt Abby, either. It's just not clear to me if they're actually testing her or not, though. Or if it's more that they don't like how her design sounds.

In any case, I think the idea of lunar abby = easy, mellow Abby and shadow abby = expert, but hard to maintain Abby or "Regular Abby Plus" sounds like it could have worked. It's just figuring out what that should actually look like.

Yes. When I tested it, I found that Gestalt Abby did not achieve the "easy to operate but average damage" effect it should have. The problem is related to the poor automatic evasion of Gestalt Abby, Luminous Wrath only lasting for 0.25 days, and the harsh conditions for switching Gestalt Abby. This means that Gestalt Abby needs to be manually controlled and the Luminous Wrath needs to be frequently replenished during battles with bosses. In contrast, the normal mode of Abby is less difficult for me to control. Mimic the solution provided by skilled players to keep Abby alive, I usually only need to use Nightshade Nostrum and Spectral Cure All once. When facing sudden attacks from spiders and hounds, regular Abby's "Tank" function is also very helpful in improving fault tolerance. In addition, regular Abby can recover to 600/600hp at once using Ghastly Experience, while Gestalt Abby can only recover to 35/600hp. Therefore, before I learn to kill Nightmare Werepig, I will use regular Abby instead of Gestalt Abby.

It should be said that in a battle, the Luminous Wrath needs to be replenished multiple times, which is the most difficult part. I always make mistakes when replenishing medication. Open Picnic Caske->Search for Potions->Use, move Abby& move Wendy, when Wendy moves, Picnic Caske will automatically close or even interrupt the use of potions, then erroneously halt and try to open Picnic Caske again, then be knocked down by Boss and killed…

Not to mention, it's difficult to get distracted and use team spirit skills.

If you happen to discover any other advantages of Gestalt Abby, please let me know. I have experienced too many failures and deaths in beta testing, and I don't really want to try more now.

[yuntunhemudu]

36 minutes ago, yuntunhemudu said:

the Luminous Wrath needs to be replenished multiple times, which is the most difficult part.

I also tried not to use Luminous Wrath, but the outcome was that the battle dragged on for too long, causing Wendy's SAN to clear, and then killed by Crawling Nightmare.
I am now very skeptical of the claim that Gestalt Abby was OP and that Gestalt Abby could easily one-on-one with any bosses in the previous beta version. The battle dragged on for too long, causing Wendy's SAN to be cleared, which is a big problem. I'm not sure how other Gestalt Abby users solved it in the previous version.

I think the current version of Wendy's Skill Tree is the most extreme version. It is set to be reasonable and balanced for highly skilled players, but completely unavailable for low skilled players.

[WenericMember]

9 minutes ago, yuntunhemudu said:

I also tried not to use Luminous Wrath, but the outcome was that the battle dragged on for too long, causing Wendy's SAN to clear, and then killed by Crawling Nightmare.
I am now very skeptical of the claim that Gestalt Abby was OP and that Gestalt Abby could easily one-on-one with any bosses in the previous beta version. The battle dragged on for too long, causing Wendy's SAN to be cleared, which is a big problem. I'm not sure how other Gestalt Abby users solved it in the previous version.

Sanity auras are based on proximity to the boss iirc. The problem was Wendy wasn't going near the boss and let Abigail do all the fighting so the sanity aura just... wasn't a thing.

[yuntunhemudu]

22 minutes ago, yuntunhemudu said:

but completely unavailable for low skilled players.

Klei will listen to the opinions of players, so it is inevitable that the balance tends to favor highly skilled players. After all, highly skilled players know what they need and what they are saying, and their statements sound very reasonable. And most low proficiency players don't even know why they fail repeatedly in the game, let alone express their needs logically.

Nevertheless, I hope that the final version of the Wendy skill tree will be accessible to players with low proficiency.

13 minutes ago, WenericMember said:

Sanity auras are based on proximity to the boss iirc. The problem was Wendy wasn't going near the boss and let Abigail do all the fighting so the sanity aura just... wasn't a thing.

Okay, the question has been answered. But when Wendy was kept away from the boss, both the boss and Gestalt Abby were at the edge of the field of vision, making it difficult to see and manipulate. Fortunately, the previous version of Gestalt Abby's AI system was smart enough.

[Picklesaurus]

51 minutes ago, yuntunhemudu said:

I am now very skeptical of the claim that Gestalt Abby was OP and that Gestalt Abby could easily one-on-one with any bosses in the previous beta version. The battle dragged on for too long, causing Wendy's SAN to be cleared, which is a big problem. I'm not sure how other Gestalt Abby users solved it in the previous version.

Gestalt Abigail could easily one-on-one most of the bosses, you can check the videos of me doing it in this post I'm linking, I'm not a highly skilled player and it was not hard to do, I just needed to know the boss attack pattern of the few bosses - crystal deerclops and armored beager - that could kill her  if I didnt tell her to dodge, the other bosses couldn't really kill her and even when I messed up against crystal deerclops and armored beager I just had to use a cure all potion and she would be be able to kill them.

[Koomin]

22 minutes ago, Picklesaurus said:

Gestalt Abigail could easily one-on-one most of the bosses, you can check the videos of me doing it in this post I'm linking, I'm not a highly skilled player and it was not hard to do, I just needed to know the boss attack pattern of the few bosses - crystal deerclops and armored beager - that could kill her  if I didnt tell her to dodge, the other bosses couldn't really kill her and even when I messed up against crystal deerclops and armored beager I just had to use a cure all potion and she would be be able to kill them.

Yea the current Gestalt Abigail is actually really well made and set up now, and the previous version was comically overpowered.  It just sticks out to some people because so many other skills in the skill tree are way too strong.  Specifically Shadow Abigail, it's main competition, is just egregiously too powerful and is a tank/DPS/AoE god.  Once the other skills are brought in line it's strengths will shine.

[Debruh]

9 hours ago, yuntunhemudu said:

When facing sudden attacks from spiders and hounds, r

I mean, gestalt Abby is a boss killing form, made for single target enemies not hordes

[DVGMedia]

I kind of feel like they needed multiple pathways for abby instead of the 2 solo lunar and shadow now.
Kind of feels like they could have gone a bit more like wormwood.  Where theres one side thats built on building up resources and summoning minions

And the other side is more on wormwood himself. Boosting the bramble healing and photosynthesis perks.

Kind of makes me think more what could have been.

[Yaorin yon]

10 hours ago, Koomin said:

Yea the current Gestalt Abigail is actually really well made and set up now, and the previous version was comically overpowered.  It just sticks out to some people because so many other skills in the skill tree are way too strong.  Specifically Shadow Abigail, it's main competition, is just egregiously too powerful and is a tank/DPS/AoE god.  Once the other skills are brought in line it's strengths will shine.

I think adjustments are still needed, including easier switching of forms, removal of 25% health mode, modification of damage structure, and unique features targeting Shadow Creatures.

Difficulty in switching is a common issue, and the experience of 25% health line in actual combat is negative (Moon Abigail, who no longer attacks, becomes very fragile and is also watched by enemies, Wendy cannot be recovered at this time, leaving the battlefield will put Moon Abigail in a position where enemies will watch).

Moon Abigail has an extremely exaggerated single attack power, which greatly reduces her attack power when facing creatures face-to-face. Her damage composition should be biased towards plane damage as much as possible, or corrected like Woody's third attack on the elk man.

The last one is to satisfy the setting and form different advantage zones with Shadow Abigail. It is obviously reasonable for Moon Spirit to attack Shadow creatures.

[Koomin]

33 minutes ago, Yaorin yon said:

I think adjustments are still needed, including easier switching of forms, removal of 25% health mode, modification of damage structure, and unique features targeting Shadow Creatures.

Difficulty in switching is a common issue, and the experience of 25% health line in actual combat is negative (Moon Abigail, who no longer attacks, becomes very fragile and is also watched by enemies, Wendy cannot be recovered at this time, leaving the battlefield will put Moon Abigail in a position where enemies will watch).

Moon Abigail has an extremely exaggerated single attack power, which greatly reduces her attack power when facing creatures face-to-face. Her damage composition should be biased towards plane damage as much as possible, or corrected like Woody's third attack on the elk man.

The last one is to satisfy the setting and form different advantage zones with Shadow Abigail. It is obviously reasonable for Moon Spirit to attack Shadow creatures.

I could agree with the 25% health mode.

Otherwise no she's in a great spot design and balance wise right now, and changes like being able to target shadow creatures would return it right back to problematic again.  The changing forms only based on moon phases is super cool and thematic and makes actual player decisions matter and definitely should remain as-is. 

She's pretty much finished and work should be focused elsewhere.

[Yaorin yon]

22 minutes ago, Koomin said:

I could agree with the 25% health mode.

The official goal of the 25% health mode was to provide a safer state, but in reality, it backfired. I didn't understand whether your statement supports my idea or opposes it.

22 minutes ago, Koomin said:

Otherwise no she's in a great spot design and balance wise right now, and changes like being able to target shadow creatures would return it right back to problematic again.  The changing forms only based on moon phases is super cool and thematic and makes actual player decisions matter and definitely should remain as-is. 

Moon phase switching is cool, but being detached from game content and having fewer choices is not cool. Nowadays, switching to the moon in Abigail is not encouraging you to explore more content in the game. There should be a reasonable way to handle it, such as strict initial switching processes and relaxed subsequent processes. Empowering players with the ability to adapt to changing situations is much more interesting than forcing them to make helpless choices, just like how Woodie can freely switch forms in different situations, instead of only allowing one form to be used for more than ten days.

[Echsrick]

i wonder if the skills would have been released earlyer or if more work would have been done without the.....noise, usefull work and not the bickering that it was most of the time on that one character

[JoeW]

Please be sure to always follow community guidelines and ensure that all posts are polite, on-topic, and constructive. 

Thank you. 

 

[Dingle]

5 minutes ago, JoeW said:

Please be sure to always follow community guidelines and ensure that all posts are polite, on-topic, and constructive. 

Thank you. 

 

Oh wow, that was a really severe culling of polite, on topic, and constructive posts.

Could we get a clarification of what to avoid talking about, in the future?

[Debruh]

Thoughts from my current run

About Mourning glory |, aside from it not being useful without shadow |||, its biggest weakness is inventory space. Theoretically, it excels at nightmare werepig, but I haven't been able to use it personally, because after a ruins rush, there is hardly space. Though to be fair, I was too anxious to grab a butterfly from the surface cause I hadn't found the rook nose (I explored all of the map except triple mctusk, guess where it was :/)

Shadow Sisterhood |||: I really like the fact that it relies on Abby's normal damage. It makes the gamble between using nightshade and another elixir really amazing. It was what pushed me into trying that crystal deerclops strategy, as the difference between shadow Abby with nighttime damage and shadow Abby with day damage is worthy enough of trying to get the former

Really annoyed with her planar defense. Honestly I wish she hadn't had planar defense at all. But something that gives her planar damage instead. Doing something that could turn some of the additional vex damage to planar damage, or just change the/ add an effect to make players deal planar damage when attacking a vexed creature.

Gestalt Abby, in my opinion, is generally fine. The 25% thing makes her disengage and gives me time to unsummon which is cool.

I proposed this before, but making her move to attack from the direction where Wendy is would be nice, or just making it so her attacks are at least predictable. She attacks a lot of times into attacks.

3 hours ago, Yaorin yon said:

targeting Shadow Creatures.

I honestly think this would be a nerf if anything. She's built around fighting single target enemies, not hordes. Shadow creatures are often not a problem when alone, only one when they become multiple. It would wear her down, and would become even more of a problem when playing in a team. You wouldn't be able to rile her up when your teammates are insane/spawning shadow creatures. 

And during the nightmare phase it would be especially problematic with all the nightmare creatures

3 hours ago, Yaorin yon said:

Moon Abigail has an extremely exaggerated single attack power, which greatly reduces her attack power when facing creatures face-to-face. Her damage composition should be biased towards plane damage as much as possible, or corrected like Woody's third attack on the elk man.

Yea, I agree with this one.

Also, why is the lunar elixir not a full/two days?

Extra yield is good for obvious reasons, but strong brew is pretty underrated

Just finished an ancient guardian fight? Well, Abby will retain the speed bonus for a pretty good amount of time. It won't just disappear while you're crafting with the drops from AG, but will continue while you're getting out of the ruins, helping her stay out of clockwork shenanigans and splumonkeys. Which helps if you do werepig right after 

Also helps a lot if you apply vigor mortis for mctusk, hunting, or blueprint swapping. You can completely skip the tier 1 magic station, or even the tier 2 and get a fire staff right away if crystal deerclops is coming up. Or get a dark sword blueprint nice and early. If rng for haunt is getting adjusted, I feel like blueprint haunting should have something done about it.

Revenant restorative also benefits a lot.

Well off to prepare for a two bishop shadow pieces fight, god help me.

[Yaorin yon]

7 hours ago, Debruh said:

Gestalt Abby, in my opinion, is generally fine. The 25% thing makes her disengage and gives me time to unsummon which is cool.

In my actual experience, the 25% mode makes it easier for Abigail to die when facing powerful enemies, because it takes about 3 seconds for players to retrieve Abigail (which cannot be skipped and will be interrupted), so Wendy has to leave the battlefield as soon as possible. But if Wendy starts leaving, the moon Abigail will overlap with the boss and continue to be attacked. The survival ability of Moon Abigail during continuous attacks is quite impressive, but the 25% mode's daydreaming time is very fragile, and this experience is quite poor.

7 hours ago, Debruh said:

I honestly think this would be a nerf if anything. She's built around fighting single target enemies, not hordes. Shadow creatures are often not a problem when alone, only one when they become multiple. It would wear her down, and would become even more of a problem when playing in a team. You wouldn't be able to rile her up when your teammates are insane/spawning shadow creatures. 

I have experienced mods that allow Abigail to attack Shadow Creatures, as well as using Bernie, who can only deal single damage, to face Shadow Creatures. Additionally, the "sprint attack" in team spirit is very effective (and I insist on making the cooling of team spirit independent CD). When combined, I believe that allowing Moon Abigail to attack Shadow Creatures will make your experience smooth and surprising.

7 hours ago, Debruh said:

Thoughts from my current run

About Mourning glory |, aside from it not being useful without shadow |||, its biggest weakness is inventory space. 

I hope they can load the potion basket with mourning glory and butterflies

[Steorra]

10 hours ago, Koomin said:

and changes like being able to target shadow creatures would return it right back to problematic again

Don't think so. There were too many people said that "Abi's survivability is the only downside of Wendy and Sisturn III fixed it", which means Shadow Creatures was never a problem to Wendy (and many people agree with this, they think Wendy has Sanity insistence which makes Wendy would almost ni need to fight shadows). So to make Gestal Abi being able to attack Shadows would just be a flavour change but do nothing to balance.

8 hours ago, Debruh said:

I honestly think this would be a nerf if anything. She's built around fighting single target enemies, not hordes. Shadow creatures are often not a problem when alone, only one when they become multiple. It would wear her down, and would become even more of a problem when playing in a team. You wouldn't be able to rile her up when your teammates are insane/spawning shadow creatures. 

I shared same feeling with you in this point. But it's an important flavour design to ensure Gestal could attack Shadows. So I woyld still vote for it.

[Koomin]

8 minutes ago, Steorra said:

Don't think so. There were too many people said that "Abi's survivability is the only downside of Wendy and Sisturn III fixed it", which means Shadow Creatures was never a problem to Wendy (and many people agree with this, they think Wendy has Sanity insistence which makes Wendy would almost ni need to fight shadows). So to make Gestal Abi being able to attack Shadows would just be a flavour change but do nothing to balance.

I shared same feeling with you in this point. But it's an important flavour design to ensure Gestal could attack Shadows. So I woyld still vote for it.

I'm sorry but making a strawman out of people's statements about downsides to say that Gestalt Abigail should be able to attack shadow creatures is being intentionally obtuse, and it's pretty disappointing to see you do that given your initial genuine attempts at discussing things reasonably a month ago.

Saying that Abigail being able to attack shadow creatures "would just be a flavour change but do nothing to balance" is pretty emblematic of the absolute floor state that the discussion over the last 2 months has reached.

[Steorra]

5 minutes ago, Koomin said:

I'm sorry but making a strawman out of people's statements about downsides to say that Gestalt Abigail should be able to attack shadow creatures is being intentionally obtuse, and it's pretty disappointing to see you do that given your initial genuine attempts at discussing things reasonably a month ago.

Saying that Abigail being able to attack shadow creatures "would just be a flavour change but do nothing to balance" is pretty emblematic of the absolute floor state that the discussion over the last 2 months has reached.

The point to me is, whatever Gestalt could attack Shadows or not, I would still prefer to use Shadow (planar defence completely nerfed to 0) or Normal Abi. And considering that too many people have said that "Wendy's only downside is Abi's survivability and if you want to go mess with shadows that's your own choices" (if you need some evidence like this, I would like to open my computer to search similar words from other arguments and making screenshots for you to prove these "really happened before"), I do really won't think to make Gestal could attack Shadows does matter for me.

To Newbies, the point of Gestalt Abi balance issue is relative with "auto killing" but not Shadow creatures. Which means to make sure to let Gestalt Abi stop dealing damage if Wendy stop attacking would work fine for the balance issues, and Shadow Creatures things does no matter to balance in this point. (You still need fight shadows yourself or Gestalt abi would lose her effect to whatever Shadows or Bosses)

I'm sorry but I'm not sure why the logic above makes you feeling disappointed 

[Koomin]

15 minutes ago, Shining Galaxy said:

So, what is your argument against gestalt Abigail attacking shadow creatures? For regular Abigail, shadow splumonkeys are easy to kill, so even if Wendy is weaker against shadow creatures, she can still obtain nightmare fuel quite well. The gestalt form takes away Abigail's AOE ability; even if gestalt Abigail were allowed to attack shadow creatures, the efficiency of obtaining fuel would still be overwhelmingly lower than that of regular Abigail. I don't understand why this is considered "imbalanced," nor do I understand why gestalt is not allowed to attack shadow creatures, and I'm also puzzled by your "disappointment."

Shadow creatures are in the game to be a threat to the player, which this change would really diminish.  They are not only a nightmare fuel source.  I'm not sure why your argument is hinging around splumonkeys and nightmare fuel farming. 

Regardless, I'm leaving this conversation here so that the nice playthrough documentation thread doesn't get too derailed.

[SilverSpoon]

I personally don't agree with Gestaby being able to attack shadow creatures.

Firstly, frankly... I think it would nerf Gestaby. Gestaby's attention would be distracted by the shadow creatures, and Wendy would not get the sanity heal from killing them, which would result in longer boss fights.

Secondly, its functionality overlaps with Willow's BERNIE. It would be better if it didn't have power creep.

If you still want Gestaby to attack shadow creatures, I suggest that Gestaby not drop Nightmare fuel when she kills them (like Greater Geshtalt does) and that Wendy would get some sanity boost when Gestaby kills shadow creatures.

[DVGMedia]

I finally got to do some range testing. I wanted to really see what changes in aggression gabby faces compared to default Abigail and its kind of interesting.

The defensive and riled up forms. has a set range that abigail follows in order to attack or follow wendy. 1-5 wall units for defensive and 3-10 wall units for offensive

and gabby still does kind of follow it where she won't attack until back in range with wendy on either of these forms But this can Lead to gabby getting completely wrecked in certain fights because abby is trying to get back in range of wendy. rile up kind of works out though too since it makes abby able to attack Despite how far away she is from wendy.

But it seems like gestalt has its own ranges. one being that Gabby will focus a target and will continue to attack that target so long she is 15 units of wendy. otherwise she will return back and follow the standard abby aggression ranges for both riled up and default. 

This means that gestalt abby will actually attack things much further than normal abby would  because her aggression range is buffed up to 15 units vs the 5 of default

However there is a range in which if wendy is not close enough to a target gabby will just completely miss the target despite it clearly hitting

Plus gestalt does not follow the standard brain of abigail in the essence of what she will attack on her own.
Gestalt abby actually only listens for combat and that combat check is only against herself and wendy and doesn't attack when near creatures that she would normally attack without instigation Like monsters and prey creatures for instance. however riled up she still attacks most things

No wonder why I always thought her ai was kind of strange.
she will only attack things that wendy commands her to or are in combat with Wendy or Abigail.
And her new 15 unit focus range changes alot of things. since she still follows the 5 unit defensive max range
This is pretty bad because then this means gabby would constantly get herself out of position
and is only really mitigated if wendy is attacking.