Yes, we do need to nerf Wendy's beefalo.

[CremeLover]

1 minute ago, Gashzer said:

I'm sure if it wasn't appropriate klei's moderators would have transferred it to bug tracker by now. 

The fact that it hasn't been moved is the most proof that it deserves to be here.

Never seen the mods move an entire thread to the bugtracker. The purpose of it is to be very neat and direct, so the developers can fix bugs fast and clean, not having to read 6+ pages of people discussing wether or not is a bug.

1 minute ago, Gashzer said:

Why report it in bug tracker when it's being openly discussed here? What difference does it make? If klei wants to fix it they will fix it regardless

If that's what you think then okay, feel free to discuss wether or not it is a bug with other forum users for another 10 pages.

[Gashzer]

1 minute ago, Steorra said:

You could never image what moderator was thinking exactly ngl. In other words, they seems more like WX-79 or WX-80 sometimes.

Somedays I feel like WX-78 other days i feel like WX-69, yeno what im saying? 

[Steorra]

5 minutes ago, CremeLover said:

If that's what you think then okay, feel free to discuss wether or not it is a bug with other forum users for another 10 pages

That would be creeeeepy~

[Gashzer]

Just now, CremeLover said:

If that's what you think then okay, feel free to discuss wether or not it is a bug with other forum users for another 10 pages.

Will do! Glad you could contribute to the discussion! 

[Grove]

43 minutes ago, Gashzer said:

update wigfrids beefalo skills to include wigfrids damage 1.25x multiplier (battle saddle could be renamed battle training, giving her beefalo 1.25x damage and also allowing battle saddle crafting as per normal

8 minutes ago, CremeLover said:

Wigfrid is weird, because despite being the only one with Beefalo perks, her playstyle is one of the least synergistics with mounting combat in the entire game

In my opinion, Wigfrid's skill tree did actually do good when it comes to beef.

As Wigfrid, you tame a beef for speed. Which the skill tree helped in.

First skill helps you tame one faster, and thus get the rider tendency faster. As well as increase the buck timer faster so it bucks you off less allowing you to cover more distance

Second skill increases the buck timer furthur 

Third one helps in fighting. You drop the beef bell somewhere, approach the fight, get off the beef and watch it scurry away, and start the fight with a bunch of inspiration on ya.

Even with a 1.25x multiplier on beef damage, it's still not gonna make beef damage good on Wigfrid, because beef usually do less than weapon damage.

Wigfrid isn't just a damage character, but an all around fighter.

Elding spear improves her damage capabilities with aoe

Commander helm improves her defenses

Battle rond improves both.

And the beef skill line improves her speed 

[CremeLover]

2 minutes ago, Debruh said:

As Wigfrid, you tame a beef for speed. Which the skill tree helped in.

I do agree, which is why I specificed mounted combat in my post, never said Beefalos were useless as a whole for her

[Gashzer]

1 minute ago, Debruh said:

In my opinion, Wigfrid's skill tree did actually do good when it comes to beef.

As Wigfrid, you tame a beef for speed. Which the skill tree helped in.

First skill helps you tame one faster, and thus get the rider tendency faster. As well as increase the buck timer faster so it bucks you off less allowing you to cover more distance

Second skill increases the buck timer furthur 

Third one helps in fighting. You drop the beef bell somewhere, approach the fight, get off the beef and watch it scurry away, and start the fight with a bunch of inspiration on ya.

Even with a 1.25x multiplier on beef damage, it's still not gonna make beef damage good on Wigfrid, because beef usually do less than weapon damage.

Wigfrid isn't just a damage character, but an all around fighter.

Elding spear improves her damage capabilities with aoe

Commander helm improves her defenses

Battle rond improves both.

And the beef skill line improves her speed 

Beef line also has battle saddle for combat... I bet you only get the first 2-3 beefalo skills and never the battle saddle. For the battle saddle to be useful for wigfrid you need to get ornery beefalo as battle saddle only gives you 5 extra damage.

The 1.25x damage multiplier would make this final beefalo skill more worth it for ornery beefalo and beefalo combat in general for wigfrid.

Wigfrid is the combat master of the roster and should excel at all forms of combat which she does for the most part.

[Crimson Hollow]

What about letting Wigfrid fight with her weapon while mounted? keeping the 1.25* modifier as well as the flavor. No other char can do this which makes it special.

[BalkanCockroach]

4 minutes ago, Crimson Hollow said:

What about letting Wigfrid fight with her weapon while mounted? keeping the 1.25* modifier as well as the flavor. No other char can do this which makes it special.

Wigfrid + Gloss + Rider 

Spoiler

Those who know 

 

[Grove]

6 minutes ago, Gashzer said:

Beef line also has battle saddle for combat... I bet you only get the first 2-3 beefalo skills and never the battle saddle. For the battle saddle to be useful for wigfrid you need to get ornery beefalo as battle saddle only gives you 5 extra damage.

Battle saddle, in my experience, works best less as a combat tool, but more of a protection tool.

Allows you to ride it while it's angry, very helpful on rider since its obedience will always allow you to ride it. As well as giving it 30% protection which allows it to withstand punishment if it gets caught up in a fight 

The 5 damage helps move rider beef damage closer to a spear, and makes killing something like a hound faster.

Still a nice skill. Also helps your teammates if they're a character that benefits your beef. So it's a nice support skill, like her new song and her affinity skills.

Even a 1.25x modifier would probably not help wigfrid beefalo combat. Considering that the very same skill tree, gives her a weapon that can gain durability off enemies. Making beef's infinite durability useless. As well as giving said weapon great aoe and evasion. And the fact that Wigfrid herself heals more than beef.

[Yaorin yon]

3 hours ago, Dr. Safety said:

Beefalos functioning how they always have is a long standing aspect of this game. Them ignoring player damage modifiers is how they always worked. Flying sniper Maxwell doesn't exist and shouldn't. Neither should Beefalos getting Wendy's positive multipliers but ignoring the negative ones.

I'm not superior, I just disagree with you.

Yes, ignoring the player's damage multiplier is indeed how Beefalo has always functioned. However, Beefalo has also always had characteristics that are compatible with certain character-specific multipliers beyond just ignoring the player's base multiplier. These include Wendy (Vex multiplier), Willow (fire resistance), Warly (electric damage), Wigfrid (healing properties and helmet durability), and the player tag judgment that is common to all characters.

The most critical point is that Wendy's multiplier impact is only 0.75%, and Vex is a debuff that Abigail applies to enemies, not Wendy's attack coefficient. Therefore, Beefalo will enjoy these character-specific multipliers just like all the other roles mentioned earlier.

There is no hierarchy among these character traits enjoyed by Beefalo. The only difference is that Vex is Wendy's advantage, which is why some people attack it simply to vent their emotions.

This is all I wanted to express. Focusing solely on Wendy for so-called balancing is far more boring than any sniper rifle or flight. Constantly trying to restrict how players enjoy the game will never bring any benefits.

Moreover, Vex is merely a discussion that vents dissatisfaction.What's worse, the source of all the conflicts arising from the completion speed of the skill trees is KLei, not the players who made the suggestions.The most serious impact of these discussions is that players are attacking each other, thereby “turning a blind eye” to the fact that KLei's skill tree work is inefficient. A development team that used to release excellent updates every month is now unable to complete the work on three skill trees in six months, and yet players can tolerate this. They are even willing to attack other players in order to support the development team. I can't understand this, let alone accept it.

[Dr. Safety]

2 hours ago, Yaorin yon said:

Yes, ignoring the player's damage multiplier is indeed how Beefalo has always functioned. However, Beefalo has also always had characteristics that are compatible with certain character-specific multipliers beyond just ignoring the player's base multiplier. These include Wendy (Vex multiplier), Willow (fire resistance), Warly (electric damage), Wigfrid (healing properties and helmet durability), and the player tag judgment that is common to all characters.

The most critical point is that Wendy's multiplier impact is only 0.75%, and Vex is a debuff that Abigail applies to enemies, not Wendy's attack coefficient. Therefore, Beefalo will enjoy these character-specific multipliers just like all the other roles mentioned earlier.

There is no hierarchy among these character traits enjoyed by Beefalo. The only difference is that Vex is Wendy's advantage, which is why some people attack it simply to vent their emotions.

This is all I wanted to express. Focusing solely on Wendy for so-called balancing is far more boring than any sniper rifle or flight. Constantly trying to restrict how players enjoy the game will never bring any benefits.

Moreover, Vex is merely a discussion that vents dissatisfaction.What's worse, the source of all the conflicts arising from the completion speed of the skill trees is KLei, not the players who made the suggestions.The most serious impact of these discussions is that players are attacking each other, thereby “turning a blind eye” to the fact that KLei's skill tree work is inefficient. A development team that used to release excellent updates every month is now unable to complete the work on three skill trees in six months, and yet players can tolerate this. They are even willing to attack other players in order to support the development team. I can't understand this, let alone accept it.

Let's pretend that a Wendy is riding a beefalo. Abigail is out and has the cursed hex elixir. Abigail begins to attack a treeguard, and so the Wendy riding a beefalo begins to attack it as well. The beefalo's attack will be amplified due to the vex debuff. Will the amplification be the regular vex debuff, or the 1.4x cursed vex debuff that is only applied to Wendy? 

I don't mind the beefalo getting the amplification from the regular vex debuff. The problem is it getting the bonus from attacking an enemy that has the debuff that is supposed to be exclusive to Wendy's attacks. That is what people are arguing. We know that it's a debuff, not a buff. We know how it works. We don't think that the beefalo should be treated as if it was Wendy when interacting with the debuff, because it's not Wendy. Just like how it doesn't do double damage when being ridden by Wolfgang, because it is a beefalo and is not Wolfgang

I can't speak for others, but the reason why I'm so adamant about this isn't because I hate Wendy and want her to be weak. I argue this because I don't want us to finish the skill trees and be left with characters who are just flat out better in every way than others. The character reworks had a similar issue where you had a character like Maxwell and a character like Willow (pre skill tree) in the same game. Maxwell had way too much going for him and Willow was such garbage compared to him. Wendy is following a similar path as Maxwell, and I fear it's only gonna get worse as more skill trees come out. There needs to be pushback against characters that were relatively strong before, and still getting buff after buff after buff after buff. 

If we don't address this now, then a couple years from now when the skill trees are done, they'll have to start round 3 of character updates to help the weaker characters. Nobody wants round 3 of character updates. Not the players, not the devs, no one.

Edit: I guess this thread is back in the beta forums again

Edit 2: nope nevermind, back in suggestions and feedback

[Yaorin yon]

1 hour ago, Dr. Safety said:

Let's pretend that a Wendy is riding a beefalo. Abigail is out and has the cursed hex elixir. Abigail begins to attack a treeguard, and so the Wendy riding a beefalo begins to attack it as well. The beefalo's attack will be amplified due to the vex debuff. Will the amplification be the regular vex debuff, or the 1.4x cursed vex debuff that is only applied to Wendy? 

I don't mind the beefalo getting the amplification from the regular vex debuff. The problem is it getting the bonus from attacking an enemy that has the debuff that is supposed to be exclusive to Wendy's attacks. That is what people are arguing. We know that it's a debuff, not a buff. We know how it works. We don't think that the beefalo should be treated as if it was Wendy when interacting with the debuff, because it's not Wendy. Just like how it doesn't do double damage when being ridden by Wolfgang, because it is a beefalo and is not Wolfgang

I can't speak for others, but the reason why I'm so adamant about this isn't because I hate Wendy and want her to be weak. I argue this because I don't want us to finish the skill trees and be left with characters who are just flat out better in every way than others. The character reworks had a similar issue where you had a character like Maxwell and a character like Willow (pre skill tree) in the same game. Maxwell had way too much going for him and Willow was such garbage compared to him. Wendy is following a similar path as Maxwell, and I fear it's only gonna get worse as more skill trees come out. There needs to be pushback against characters that were relatively strong before, and still getting buff after buff after buff after buff. 

If we don't address this now, then a couple years from now when the skill trees are done, they'll have to start round 3 of character updates to help the weaker characters. Nobody wants round 3 of character updates. Not the players, not the devs, no one.

Edit: I guess this thread is back in the beta forums again

Edit 2: nope nevermind, back in suggestions and feedback

I understand your concerns. Let's break down the issue step by step.

First, Regarding Beefalo

As I mentioned earlier, many characters have traits that synergize with Beefalo, and there's no real reason to single out Wendy. If Wendy's Beefalo can only enjoy the regular Vex effect, then how is this different from other players using Beefalo to attack enemies with Vex applied by Abigail? Vex is a debuff that affects all characters, with additional effects for Wendy. There's no reason to selectively apply balancing logic to Beefalo just because it ignores multipliers. I've been against this kind of balancing thinking from the start. It feels like if Willow is immune to fire, and there's an enemy that only uses fire attacks, players would want Willow to take some extra damage to "balance" the fact that fire is ineffective against her. That's just not interesting.

Then, About "Strength and Weakness"

This touches on a core issue: "Wendy's characteristic is attack multiplier." Focusing solely on Wendy's exclusive Vex is inherently targeting Wendy. The main dilemma between you and me is our definition of Wendy's character, which I've mentioned in my post. I'll share it here and briefly touch on the core solution ideas.

 

 

    Like Woodie and Winona: Use sufficiently excellent additional traits to make the original main trait a parallel trait. This way, there's no need to keep stacking Vex attack multipliers. Even if you really prevent Beefalo from enjoying the extra Vex, not many people would be opposed.

    Refine the Vex Multiplier: Abigail providing the multiplier is everything about Wendy's trait. What Wendy needs to do is make Abigail better at applying Vex and providing more Vex.

 

If KLei doesn't focus on one of these directions, Wendy's skill tree is doomed to be unsatisfactory.

Next, Regarding Character Trait Advantages

The core issues here are threefold:

 

    Does the character really have an advantage in the current environment?

    What is the significance of balancing thinking?

    Is the best way to make a character strong to make the character itself stronger, or to make other characters weaker?

 

Regarding 1: The current environment is the Rift phase, a stage where knockback attacks are rampant and enemy mechanics are complex. Under the influence of Abigail's weak AI and Beefalo's fear of knockback attacks, I don't think Wendy is still considered a "strong character." Her advantages are severely squeezed by Willow. From an in-game level perspective, Wendy is now purely a subpar version of Willow, and even with the skill tree, this fact hasn't changed. This clearly contradicts your expectation of "everyone being useful."

Regarding 2: Just because a character is strong, does that mean their skill tree has to be perfunctory or weak? I've never believed this kind of thinking makes sense in today's DST. DST is not a PVP game but a cooperative one. The most important thing for a character is to have its own unique traits. I don't mind you giving a powerful character a skill tree that doesn't significantly boost numbers, but the design of this skill tree still needs to be thoughtful and offer gameplay expansion. It's absurd if the skill tree even drastically weakens its original abilities and then gives a small reward. Such a skill tree has no meaning. Not to mention that Wendy is no longer a "strong character" in the current environment.

Regarding 3: This is the most important point. Understanding the problem should lead to understanding the answer. If you want the game to be more fun, you need everyone to be useful, not everyone to be crippled. Unless this is the Paralympics, which it clearly isn't.

Different characters are the soul of DST, and making characters useful is KLei's most important job. If you think a character isn't useful enough, you should ask KLei to provide more effective content for that character, not make other characters less useful.

Willow, Winona, and Wortox with their skill trees are good examples. Wigfrid is undoubtedly the biggest victim of this balancing mindset. Being mediocre in everything is the biggest fault.

 

Editor's Note:

Although it may sound strange, my firm response to you essentially stems from the same idea—that

“we both want the issue to be resolved in one go.”

The difference lies in our concerns. You worry that characters might become overwhelmingly powerful after the skill tree updates, to the point where they would need a third round of buffs to keep them in check.

On the other hand,I worry that characters might become so weak after the skill tree updates that they would need a third round of buffs to remain viable.

Among the current skill trees, the character that best fits your concern is definitely not Wendy, but Wortox, and perhaps even Walter. This is not an irresponsible statement, but rather a very serious observation. On the platforms I frequently use for communication, the potential of these two characters has been developed to a terrifying degree. I believe this far exceeds your imagination, which makes your strictness towards Wendy hard for me to empathize with.

 

[Dr. Safety]

4 hours ago, Yaorin yon said:

I understand your concerns. Let's break down the issue step by step.

First, Regarding Beefalo

As I mentioned earlier, many characters have traits that synergize with Beefalo, and there's no real reason to single out Wendy. If Wendy's Beefalo can only enjoy the regular Vex effect, then how is this different from other players using Beefalo to attack enemies with Vex applied by Abigail? Vex is a debuff that affects all characters, with additional effects for Wendy. There's no reason to selectively apply balancing logic to Beefalo just because it ignores multipliers. I've been against this kind of balancing thinking from the start. It feels like if Willow is immune to fire, and there's an enemy that only uses fire attacks, players would want Willow to take some extra damage to "balance" the fact that fire is ineffective against her. That's just not interesting.

I see where you are coming from, and I respect your position. Let's discuss. I'll be honest, I know nothing about Wigfrid's tree and how she synergizes with beefalo, does she give the beefalo lifesteal? If so that seems weird and should probably just be part of her beefalo skill tree.

The big difference between Wendy and the other three (Wigfrid, Warly, Willow) is how much of an impact it has. It is why it is suddenly a big topic of debate. Warly, Willow, and (I imagine) Wigfrid had very niche and arguably valuable interactions with the beefalo. Warly could ride a beef and give electric damage, but it would be objectively better to use chili volt goat jelly and just fight on foot. Wigfrid... again I have no clue, but I always see people complaining that she is one of the worst characters to ride a beefalo so I can't imagine it is that impactful. Willow is probably the most significant of the three, which was transferring her extra damage to burning targets to the beefalo. This damage is severely outclassed by the affinity fire spells that she is able to cast. So all in all, these small interactions offer nothing and barely anyone would notice if Klei just up and removed them (I didn't even know that they existed until people started talking about them during the beta debates awhile ago).

Wendy on the other hand goes from a character doing above average damage to being on par with the best single target damage dealers in the game. The beefalo interaction that is somewhere between niche and useless on other characters, completely flips her one single downside into an upside so big that it can compete with Wolfgang. I'm not saying that she should have no interaction with the beefalo, I'm saying that she will still be a VERY good character if the beefalo only gets to use the regular vex debuff.

4 hours ago, Yaorin yon said:

Then, About "Strength and Weakness"

This touches on a core issue: "Wendy's characteristic is attack multiplier." Focusing solely on Wendy's exclusive Vex is inherently targeting Wendy. The main dilemma between you and me is our definition of Wendy's character, which I've mentioned in my post. I'll share it here and briefly touch on the core solution ideas.

 

 

    Like Woodie and Winona: Use sufficiently excellent additional traits to make the original main trait a parallel trait. This way, there's no need to keep stacking Vex attack multipliers. Even if you really prevent Beefalo from enjoying the extra Vex, not many people would be opposed.

    Refine the Vex Multiplier: Abigail providing the multiplier is everything about Wendy's trait. What Wendy needs to do is make Abigail better at applying Vex and providing more Vex.

 

If KLei doesn't focus on one of these directions, Wendy's skill tree is doomed to be unsatisfactory.

But is it unsatisfactory? With all due respect, Wendy was a great character before the skill tree. Not OP or anything and definitely requires a lot more nuance than most give her credit for, but she was still very good at what she does. She could definitely use some QoL changes and some nice minor buffs to some places where she falls short. Funny enough, she was a lot like Wolfgang in that respect. Wolfgang was in a good place, good at what he does, and just needed some little tweaks and QoL adjustments. Look at his skill tree. Over half of the perks are straight up useless. The chopping perks are very nice, the planar damage helps him still be better than others at damage, the affinity perks are nice. Everything else is is either overwhelmingly situational or flat out useless.

Woodie and Winona were bad characters at the end of the character refreshes. Winona had no reason to actually play her and Woodie could be griefed by his teammates and would have to go through the most miserable don't starve experience just to fight celestial champion. That is why they had really good skill trees. They had a lot of room to grow without ending up overpowered. Simply put, they needed it.

I'm not saying that Wendy should have a mostly useless skill tree, but I am saying that she was good before the skill tree, she will be great after the skill tree, and she doesn't need a beefalo doing 1.4x damage to be great. That is overkill and it will just raise the bar higher than we've had before, which was the issue with character refreshes. When you keep making characters more and more powerful as you update them, the early ones won't be relevant. Wendy is nowhere near being irrelevant She will still do amazing damage on a beefalo if it just had the normal vex multiplier.

4 hours ago, Yaorin yon said:

Next, Regarding Character Trait Advantages

The core issues here are threefold:

 

    Does the character really have an advantage in the current environment?

    What is the significance of balancing thinking?

    Is the best way to make a character strong to make the character itself stronger, or to make other characters weaker?

 

Regarding 1: The current environment is the Rift phase, a stage where knockback attacks are rampant and enemy mechanics are complex. Under the influence of Abigail's weak AI and Beefalo's fear of knockback attacks, I don't think Wendy is still considered a "strong character." Her advantages are severely squeezed by Willow. From an in-game level perspective, Wendy is now purely a subpar version of Willow, and even with the skill tree, this fact hasn't changed. This clearly contradicts your expectation of "everyone being useful."

Regarding 2: Just because a character is strong, does that mean their skill tree has to be perfunctory or weak? I've never believed this kind of thinking makes sense in today's DST. DST is not a PVP game but a cooperative one. The most important thing for a character is to have its own unique traits. I don't mind you giving a powerful character a skill tree that doesn't significantly boost numbers, but the design of this skill tree still needs to be thoughtful and offer gameplay expansion. It's absurd if the skill tree even drastically weakens its original abilities and then gives a small reward. Such a skill tree has no meaning. Not to mention that Wendy is no longer a "strong character" in the current environment.

Regarding 3: This is the most important point. Understanding the problem should lead to understanding the answer. If you want the game to be more fun, you need everyone to be useful, not everyone to be crippled. Unless this is the Paralympics, which it clearly isn't.

Different characters are the soul of DST, and making characters useful is KLei's most important job. If you think a character isn't useful enough, you should ask KLei to provide more effective content for that character, not make other characters less useful.

Willow, Winona, and Wortox with their skill trees are good examples. Wigfrid is undoubtedly the biggest victim of this balancing mindset. Being mediocre in everything is the biggest fault.

In response to 1: There are going to be situations where certain characters shine, and there are going to be times when they don't. Just because Willow is better than Wendy in a certain situation doesn't mean that Willow is just a better Wendy all around. The late game bosses are definitely rough for Wendy. Funny beefalo dealing big damage shouldn't be the answer to that. Abigail should be the answer to that. Maybe those fights are just meant to be tough for Wendy though. That doesn't mean that she is a bad character now. She is still very good.

In response to 2: I touched on this a bit earlier, but that logic is what caused the character refreshes to be so unbalanced that we needed skill trees. They took the worst characters and gave them refreshes first, since they needed it the most. Then when the good characters started getting refreshes, the people who played those characters wanted them to get more powerful just like the earlier ones did. Then we had Willow and Winona who were still very weak, and we had Maxwell who was amazing at everything. I can't tell you how many times I heard people say "DST is not a PVP game, it is a coop game" when I voiced my opinions about characters being weaker than other ones during the refreshes. Now we are here still trying to balance the characters because Klei didn't get it right the first time, which is what I argued would happen way back then.

In response to 3: I'm not arguing to make her weaker, I'm arguing to not make her too strong. She won't be crippled if she can't do Wolfgang levels of damage. Not many characters can do Wolfgang levels of damage, and I wouldn't call them crippled. Just because Wendy isn't the best at everything doesn't mean she is crippled.

I love Klei as a company, but one thing that they do that I can't stand is that they are afraid to tweak characters unless there is a big update centered around that character. If history is anything to go by, Wigfrid will be mediocre for the next several months, possibly years, until character updates part 3 start coming out. Then and only then will they try to make her better. That is why it is so important that they don't make the characters too weak and they don't make the characters too strong (I haven't played any Wigfrid so I don't know if she's actually that bad or not, I'm just going based on what you said).

4 hours ago, Yaorin yon said:

Editor's Note:

Although it may sound strange, my firm response to you essentially stems from the same idea—that

“we both want the issue to be resolved in one go.”

The difference lies in our concerns. You worry that characters might become overwhelmingly powerful after the skill tree updates, to the point where they would need a third round of buffs to keep them in check.

On the other hand,I worry that characters might become so weak after the skill tree updates that they would need a third round of buffs to remain viable.

Among the current skill trees, the character that best fits your concern is definitely not Wendy, but Wortox, and perhaps even Walter. This is not an irresponsible statement, but rather a very serious observation. On the platforms I frequently use for communication, the potential of these two characters has been developed to a terrifying degree. I believe this far exceeds your imagination, which makes your strictness towards Wendy hard for me to empathize with.

I do see that we want the same thing ultimately, but I am just not convinced that Wendy isn't at high risk of becoming the next Maxwell. She is no where near the weaker character, and yet people just want in increase her strength over and over and over again.

I'm sorry for the giant wall of words, I know it is going to be exhausting to read, and I won't blame you if you don't want to. Thank you for having a meaningful and friendly discussion with me. It is a nice change from how some others were responding 

[Yaorin yon]

9 hours ago, Dr. Safety said:

I see where you are coming from, and I respect your position. Let's discuss. I'll be honest, I know nothing about Wigfrid's tree and how she synergizes with beefalo, does she give the beefalo lifesteal? If so that seems weird and should probably just be part of her beefalo skill tree.

The big difference between Wendy and the other three (Wigfrid, Warly, Willow) is how much of an impact it has. It is why it is suddenly a big topic of debate. Warly, Willow, and (I imagine) Wigfrid had very niche and arguably valuable interactions with the beefalo. Warly could ride a beef and give electric damage, but it would be objectively better to use chili volt goat jelly and just fight on foot. Wigfrid... again I have no clue, but I always see people complaining that she is one of the worst characters to ride a beefalo so I can't imagine it is that impactful. Willow is probably the most significant of the three, which was transferring her extra damage to burning targets to the beefalo. This damage is severely outclassed by the affinity fire spells that she is able to cast. So all in all, these small interactions offer nothing and barely anyone would notice if Klei just up and removed them (I didn't even know that they existed until people started talking about them during the beta debates awhile ago).

Wendy on the other hand goes from a character doing above average damage to being on par with the best single target damage dealers in the game. The beefalo interaction that is somewhere between niche and useless on other characters, completely flips her one single downside into an upside so big that it can compete with Wolfgang. I'm not saying that she should have no interaction with the beefalo, I'm saying that she will still be a VERY good character if the beefalo only gets to use the regular vex debuff.

But is it unsatisfactory? With all due respect, Wendy was a great character before the skill tree. Not OP or anything and definitely requires a lot more nuance than most give her credit for, but she was still very good at what she does. She could definitely use some QoL changes and some nice minor buffs to some places where she falls short. Funny enough, she was a lot like Wolfgang in that respect. Wolfgang was in a good place, good at what he does, and just needed some little tweaks and QoL adjustments. Look at his skill tree. Over half of the perks are straight up useless. The chopping perks are very nice, the planar damage helps him still be better than others at damage, the affinity perks are nice. Everything else is is either overwhelmingly situational or flat out useless.

Woodie and Winona were bad characters at the end of the character refreshes. Winona had no reason to actually play her and Woodie could be griefed by his teammates and would have to go through the most miserable don't starve experience just to fight celestial champion. That is why they had really good skill trees. They had a lot of room to grow without ending up overpowered. Simply put, they needed it.

I'm not saying that Wendy should have a mostly useless skill tree, but I am saying that she was good before the skill tree, she will be great after the skill tree, and she doesn't need a beefalo doing 1.4x damage to be great. That is overkill and it will just raise the bar higher than we've had before, which was the issue with character refreshes. When you keep making characters more and more powerful as you update them, the early ones won't be relevant. Wendy is nowhere near being irrelevant She will still do amazing damage on a beefalo if it just had the normal vex multiplier.

In response to 1: There are going to be situations where certain characters shine, and there are going to be times when they don't. Just because Willow is better than Wendy in a certain situation doesn't mean that Willow is just a better Wendy all around. The late game bosses are definitely rough for Wendy. Funny beefalo dealing big damage shouldn't be the answer to that. Abigail should be the answer to that. Maybe those fights are just meant to be tough for Wendy though. That doesn't mean that she is a bad character now. She is still very good.

In response to 2: I touched on this a bit earlier, but that logic is what caused the character refreshes to be so unbalanced that we needed skill trees. They took the worst characters and gave them refreshes first, since they needed it the most. Then when the good characters started getting refreshes, the people who played those characters wanted them to get more powerful just like the earlier ones did. Then we had Willow and Winona who were still very weak, and we had Maxwell who was amazing at everything. I can't tell you how many times I heard people say "DST is not a PVP game, it is a coop game" when I voiced my opinions about characters being weaker than other ones during the refreshes. Now we are here still trying to balance the characters because Klei didn't get it right the first time, which is what I argued would happen way back then.

In response to 3: I'm not arguing to make her weaker, I'm arguing to not make her too strong. She won't be crippled if she can't do Wolfgang levels of damage. Not many characters can do Wolfgang levels of damage, and I wouldn't call them crippled. Just because Wendy isn't the best at everything doesn't mean she is crippled.

I love Klei as a company, but one thing that they do that I can't stand is that they are afraid to tweak characters unless there is a big update centered around that character. If history is anything to go by, Wigfrid will be mediocre for the next several months, possibly years, until character updates part 3 start coming out. Then and only then will they try to make her better. That is why it is so important that they don't make the characters too weak and they don't make the characters too strong (I haven't played any Wigfrid so I don't know if she's actually that bad or not, I'm just going based on what you said).

I do see that we want the same thing ultimately, but I am just not convinced that Wendy isn't at high risk of becoming the next Maxwell. She is no where near the weaker character, and yet people just want in increase her strength over and over and over again.

I'm sorry for the giant wall of words, I know it is going to be exhausting to read, and I won't blame you if you don't want to. Thank you for having a meaningful and friendly discussion with me. It is a nice change from how some others were responding

I think we both understand that neither of us is likely to persuade the other at the moment. However, since I am the one who posted this wall of text, and since forum discussions are visible to everyone, I feel it is my duty to provide a concluding response to this discussion.

What I am trying to say is that Wigfrid should not be able to grant any attributes to Beefalo, but when using Beefalo to attack, Wigfrid should be able to enjoy the life-stealing, combat readiness, and helmet durability recovery that apply to herself. These are all important aspects of Wigfrid, and they should not be ignored just because they are not attack multipliers (especially when Wigfrid is wearing her most beneficial crown, the Enlightened Crown).

Influence is a good argument. I believe my previous discussion on character positioning can address this point.

Firstly, Vex is currently the most core characteristic of Wendy among all characters. Apart from this, I cannot find any other comparison that would give Wendy an advantage over other characters with rich abilities. Abigail is a unit that exists solely for combat and has almost no functions that could be considered a main characteristic outside of combat (a main characteristic is something that can be listed alongside other features. For example, you would not consider Willow's ability to cook food with a lighter as a main characteristic that could be listed alongside fire magic or Bernie).

Stripping Wendy of her exclusive Vex feature means, in the current horizontal comparison of all characters, stripping her of her only advantage. (This requires a deep understanding of each character's abilities on the part of the players, which makes it potentially the most controversial conclusion. If you have any confusion about this, I am happy to discuss it further.)

Secondly, there is the degree of influence itself.

Is a 1.4 Vex multiplier really that exaggerated? Is Wendy an amazing character?

If it were before the From Beyond update, I would strongly support your idea, and I would agree that Wendy is already sufficient, if not a bit too strong.

But now we are in the version after From Beyond.

A 1.4 Vex Beefalo is actually quite weak because the Planar Entity significantly diminishes this benefit. If you have tested it, you would know that its damage, even with the Nightmare Saddle equipped, is only 68.1/63.1, compared to the regular character's 51/55. Meanwhile, Wendy has to manage both the Beefalo, which is affected by knockback attacks, and the fragile Abigail.

This operational cost is far higher than that of any other DST character. Even so, Wilson can deal 69 damage in a single hit with the Brightshade Helmet and Brightshade Sword equipped, and Wolfgang can deal an astonishing 117 (not to mention the additional 1.3 group damage that is not calculated).

So, considering that Wendy now has damage as her main characteristic, is she really an amazing character in the From Beyond version? I think you can figure that out for yourself.

In summary, if Wendy were truly going to become an overwhelming character after the skill tree update, I would stand with you and demand a nerf. However, before that, I hope you can accept the fact that Wendy is not overwhelming at the moment because, as you know, if Wendy does not get improved in this test server, KLei will put her in the third round of changes, and I cannot accept such an indefinite wait.