Walter's new perks - opinion

[Kacpert25]

A few days have passed since the release of the Walter patch. So I would like to express my feelings about some of his perks.

Pioneer's Panache - It's quite good that Pinetree Pioneer Hat got something in the skill tree, but I have mixed feelings about this perk. Despite better statistics, no one will probably take it anyway. It's also a bit sad that Walter didn't receive some endgame armor with the effect of his hat.
Field Medic - A very strong perk, too strong perk. A non-rotting heal that can be made from super cheap butterfly wings, which also heals 45 hp, is crazy strong. I think that this item should rot and the additional healing bonus from healing items should be reduced from 50% to 20%.
Campfire Enthusiast - Here I would only like it to be possible to add fuel when it is in eq.
Let's Rack And Roll - Great perk, but I don't think Woby should get a drying rack immediately after activating this perk. Walter should have crafted this drying rack that he would put on Woby.

So that's all I wanted to convey. I won't comment on other perks because I think Klei did a perfect job with them : ).

Thank you for reading.

[YouKnowWho142]

The drying rack critique is reasonable and honestly how I thought it was going to work

however, I really don’t see anything wrong with the field medic perk. It adds a a new interesting and viable way to heal without pierogi spam, which is still arguably easier than collecting that many butterfly wings while also restoring only 5 less hp and being better for the rest of your team (since your teammates don’t get the field medic bonus if they heal themselves with it)

[kroban]

17 minutes ago, YouKnowWho142 said:

The drying rack critique is reasonable and honestly how I thought it was going to work

 

My theory is that Klei probably didn't made it a craftable item for 2 reasons:

1. They tried to, but caused too many issues/crashes because small Woby being able to "wear" an item was probably a whole can of worms in the coding.

2. Walter already has too many things on his crafting inventory, so rather than adding yet another item, they decided to make it something that "just appears".

Edit: or probably a 3rd reason would be that it isn't implemented yet, maybe later you will be required to craft it

[Chewabacca]

Pioneer’s Panache is definitely going to be one of the less-picked ones because most people will probably go ranged, in which case a football helmet is more useful for increasing Woby’s damage tolerance, but I still like it because it gives a boost to folks who want to go with a more hybrid build, with the slingshot being used only for bird killing and special effects. Thinking of trying out a melee build with it just for the novelty. 
 

Also, what does “in eq” mean?

[Maxil20]

12 minutes ago, Kacpert25 said:

Field Medic - A very strong perk, too strong perk. A non-rotting heal that can be made from super cheap butterfly wings, which also heals 45 hp, is crazy strong.

Maybe I’m a bit biased here, but I don’t think it’s an absurdly powerful perk. While the butterfly wrap is quite nice, you also have to take into account it’s a character specific healing item, compared to the universal route of just preparing a bunch of healing food and eating it as just about every other character. I like that Walter tries to do something different by encouraging a different approach. It could be argued it’s stepping a bit into Wormwood’s territory, but I don’t think it’s inherently a bad thing.

[Crimson Hollow]

14 minutes ago, kroban said:

My theory is that Klei probably didn't made it a craftable item for 2 reasons:

1. They tried to, but caused too many issues/crashes because small Woby being able to "wear" an item was probably a whole can of worms in the coding.

2. Walter already has too many things on his crafting inventory, so rather than adding yet another item, they decided to make it something that "just appears".

Edit: or probably a 3rd reason would be that it isn't implemented yet, maybe later you will be required to craft it

They can probably make an interface that requires materials, like the one when you construct the celestial portal

[YouKnowWho142]

5 minutes ago, Maxil20 said:

It could be argued it’s stepping a bit into Wormwood’s territory, but I don’t think it’s inherently a bad thing.

I wouldn’t say so, wormwood has a whole list of healing items that otherwise weren’t meant for healing that only he can use and a lot of them are healing over time. Walter doesn’t really encroach on that, they’re pretty different cases

[aidancode]

11 minutes ago, Maxil20 said:

Maybe I’m a bit biased here, but I don’t think it’s an absurdly powerful perk. While the butterfly wrap is quite nice, you also have to take into account it’s a character specific healing item, compared to the universal route of just preparing a bunch of healing food and eating it as just about every other character. I like that Walter tries to do something different by encouraging a different approach. It could be argued it’s stepping a bit into Wormwood’s territory, but I don’t think it’s inherently a bad thing.

it's worthwhile to also consider that Walter tends to take high amounts of damage all at once, and healing isn't the only thing he needs when damaged. Walter's healing skill doesn't meld particularly well with the character's ideal playstyle, which I think is by design. I agree with OP that the skill is very strong, but at the same time, I'm not currently using it.

[SpookyXy]

Just now, aidancode said:

it's worthwhile to also consider that Walter tends to take high amounts of damage all at once, and healing isn't the only thing he needs when damaged. Walter's healing skill doesn't meld particularly well with the character's ideal playstyle, which I think is by design. I agree with OP that the skill is very strong, but at the same time, I'm not currently using it.

This perk would probably be broken on any other character but Walter is all about avoiding taking damage in the first place. He can't afford to just stand and tank without wrecking his sanity so if he really wanted to abuse the healing he'd need to bring a ton of sanity food as well and in the end isn't much different from what the other characters do.

[Chewabacca]

I’m thinking over the Flutter Strip suggestion, and I think having it spoil would be a neat nod to the crafting recipe and wouldn’t be too big a deal given how easy it is to make. I wouldn’t want it to spoil as quickly as butterfly wings, that would make it flat-out useless for the caves or the sea, but 10 or even 12 days sounds fair. A buff of 20% instead of 50% to all healing items is also acceptable, since that still makes spider glands by their own not garbage. 

The thing about Walter’s healing is that his most powerful healing item, the tent, is pretty boring to use, so I can see why they wanted to give him something good and quick. The flutter strip could be the “oops I got hit once by a catcoon” item, and the tent could be used for recovery after you’ve made a bunch of mistakes and your sanity is running low as well as your HP. Giving the strip spoilage would work for that. It’d be the item that you make quickly after a simple mistake, not something you could stockpile.  

[Hollow soul 3]

They threw in wortox's kit from his release. Really original guys, great job. You did so good, drinks all around. 20/10, you cracked the code.

[Walrusst]

If the pioneer hat had somewhat higher rain protection with the skill I honestly would be a little tempted. As it stands, it being a little bit better then a football helm for water just means in the most impoverished cases I'll be wearing armor instead to prevent damage instead of reducing the side effects of damage. Without something distinct to it its drowned in the fact that clothing slots are swamped and people rarely use more then a small handful of options.

Like with the healing perk, marble suit, pionneer hat perk the tank walter meme is something you seriously can do, but that setups so hyper tailored to a single playstyle and so memey that you have to be a little whimsical to do it. Like yes you CAN, but you are stacking so many points there that I am left asking are you really sure you want to?

As for the healing perk, in a world where we have pierogis, surf and turf, and rapidly eaten jerky it sort of just puts medical items on the menu in the first place. Its so rare that I see people use anything other then massive mountains of cheap healing food, so the fact that honey poultice can finally keep up with some shrimp and some steak is actually kinda cool.
Not to mention, eating the butterflies or making muffins with some kelp is similar to or better then the bandages except if you go a season without getting hungry or injured.
60 HP in butter muffins (That also tops off your sanity you lost getting hurt!) or 45 in bandages?

[PanJakubPuchaty]

1 hour ago, Chewabacca said:

Also, what does “in eq” mean?

"In equipment" so the same as "in his inventory"

1 hour ago, Kacpert25 said:

A few days have passed since the release of the Walter patch. So I would like to express my feelings about some of his perks.

Pioneer's Panache - It's quite good that Pinetree Pioneer Hat got something in the skill tree, but I have mixed feelings about this perk. Despite better statistics, no one will probably take it anyway. It's also a bit sad that Walter didn't receive some endgame armor with the effect of his hat.
Field Medic - A very strong perk, too strong perk. A non-rotting heal that can be made from super cheap butterfly wings, which also heals 45 hp, is crazy strong. I think that this item should rot and the additional healing bonus from healing items should be reduced from 50% to 20%.
Campfire Enthusiast - Here I would only like it to be possible to add fuel when it is in eq.
Let's Rack And Roll - Great perk, but I don't think Woby should get a drying rack immediately after activating this perk. Walter should have crafted this drying rack that he would put on Woby.

So that's all I wanted to convey. I won't comment on other perks because I think Klei did a perfect job with them : ).

Thank you for reading.

Average Kacpert25 W.

[WilsonHiggs]

I dont think the butterfly perk is op but i have the nitpick of feeling like the recipe is kind of uninspired...maybe adding a couple of grass to it would make feel more like a bandage. 

[Jakepeng99]

1 hour ago, Maxil20 said:

Maybe I’m a bit biased here, but I don’t think it’s an absurdly powerful perk. While the butterfly wrap is quite nice, you also have to take into account it’s a character specific healing item, compared to the universal route of just preparing a bunch of healing food and eating it as just about every other character. I like that Walter tries to do something different by encouraging a different approach. It could be argued it’s stepping a bit into Wormwood’s territory, but I don’t think it’s inherently a bad thing.

It is kinda easy to farm alot of them.

22 minutes ago, WilsonHiggs said:

I dont think the butterfly perk is op but i have the nitpick of feeling like the recipe is kind of uninspired...maybe adding a couple of grass to it would make feel more like a bandage. 

Maybe a petal.

[Walrusst]

26 minutes ago, Jakepeng99 said:

It is kinda easy to farm alot of them.

ok but the same is true of butter muffins after like 5 minutes of ramming kelp into the shore, you even have woby auto collecting filler so you only need to put the bare minimum of fresh ingredients for you.

or pierogis after you shoot a few birds

or honey poultice after you stinger round a horde of angry bees (Since at faster then rider gossamer speeds, even papyrus isn't much of a bottleneck)

Small snack foods are walters specialty and a lot of them heal a lot when processed properly.
Not to mention the butterfly wings are still 29 hp when eaten raw for one bandages worth (Where you also get the other benefits of eating butterflies.)

Like.
You are discussing possible nerfs into territory where the skill would be automatically useless or exploited in even more minmaxy ways.
Probing for balance is fine but this is a really strange place to be digging.

[Soul7k]

the thing about butterfly wrap is it competes with honey poultice for the same healing, which is also incredibly easy to get, so I am not sure if it needs to be or removed. if anything it maybe should cost 1 less butterfly, but I don't really have feelings about this mostly because I average about 10 butterfly a day which is like 3 bandage.

As for the drying rack I wouldn't mind if it was a craft-able item and you could place it on Woby or on the ground. Wouldn't even have to change the art (maybe?)

[Guille6785]

2 hours ago, Kacpert25 said:

Field Medic - A very strong perk, too strong perk.

me who immediately decided I'll never have a reason to pick this perk since I never take significant damage so it's a free point I won't have to spend:

2 hours ago, Maxil20 said:

I like that Walter tries to do something different by encouraging a different approach.

guess that just goes to show how much variety walter's skill tree encourages depending on your playstyle which is great IMO

[Chewabacca]

Kind of wonder whether the item is aimed at new Walter players because of the whole "ooooh, it's impossible to survive more than a few days as Walter because he gets hit once and goes insane, this definitely makes him worse than Wes" thing that's gotten spread around. It's made of the one thing that the starter ammo can one-hit, and it doesn't need a crockpot or an alchemy engine. Not that it matters really, just interesting to think about.

The thing with honey poultices is that they're much less easily available than these because they need papyrus. Sure it's easy to get to the swamp but just getting to the swamp has never been the only difficult thing about collecting reeds. Plus butterflies respawn so quickly, meanwhile reeds take forever to regrow. Healing food is also less at-the-ready than these because you still need to get back to base for the crockpot to make them. Obviously these should still be better than eating the wings on their own, but going from 50% to 20% and adding in a long spoilage time wouldn't be that much of a nerf to it, only 4 HP worse than pierogies and way more convenient. It wouldn't become useless at all.

[Mysterious box]

3 hours ago, Kacpert25 said:

Field Medic - A very strong perk, too strong perk. A non-rotting heal that can be made from super cheap butterfly wings, which also heals 45 hp, is crazy strong. I think that this item should rot and the additional healing bonus from healing items should be reduced from 50% to 20%

I'm going to have to disagree here after having used it for awhile medicine already isn't a very popular option and this perk is competing with his base tent if a nerf must be given to it then simply make it so that the butterfly strip isn't affected by it so that it remains at 30 for Walter and his team. Though again considering how few people move away from the food meta which covers 3 stats instead of 1 I think a nerf is largely unnecessary.

4 hours ago, Kacpert25 said:

Pioneer's Panache - It's quite good that Pinetree Pioneer Hat got something in the skill tree, but I have mixed feelings about this perk. Despite better statistics, no one will probably take it anyway. It's also a bit sad that Walter didn't receive some endgame armor with the effect of his hat.

This skill isn't as bad as it seems in fact I feel like it's the ideal skill for those not really interested in the slingshot let's take the ancient guardian as an example and your only armor are log suits you take 20 damage per hit from ancient guardian's direct attack and 12 from his shadow tentacles but in terms of sanity damage you take 10 from his direct attack and 6 from his shadow tentacles. With a logsuit and without the hat the hat it takes 5 hits from ancient guardian to go insane. With the hat but without the perk it takes 9 hits to go insane though unless you heal your hp you'll already be dead. Finally with the hat and the perk it takes 17 hits to go insane from fighting him with a log suit that's a huge amount of mistakes you can make before sanity is ever a consideration again assuming you heal to avoid just dying due to lack of hp but everyone has to worry about that aspect. Your required to use a specific headpiece but that head piece takes care of the biggest complaint people often have with his downside while not fully removing it the price is simply his headslot. Also the bonus 120 cooling is not a nothing addition for summer either. I realize a lot of people will skip over the skill but I feel like those who do struggle with Walter's sanity will realize it's true value if they give it a shot even once.

 

[Soul7k]

1 hour ago, Chewabacca said:

snip

monkey tails exist. and i can mass produce them with Wormwood if i want to, but you are right in the sense that i can either make 3 or 4 bandages a day on average or make a bunch  of honey poultices at once then have to wait for a regrow period

[Mysterious box]

1 hour ago, Chewabacca said:

Kind of wonder whether the item is aimed at new Walter players because of the whole "ooooh, it's impossible to survive more than a few days as Walter because he gets hit once and goes insane, this definitely makes him worse than Wes" thing that's gotten spread around. It's made of the one thing that the starter ammo can one-hit, and it doesn't need a crockpot or an alchemy engine. Not that it matters really, just interesting to think about.

The thing with honey poultices is that they're much less easily available than these because they need papyrus. Sure it's easy to get to the swamp but just getting to the swamp has never been the only difficult thing about collecting reeds. Plus butterflies respawn so quickly, meanwhile reeds take forever to regrow. Healing food is also less at-the-ready than these because you still need to get back to base for the crockpot to make them. Obviously these should still be better than eating the wings on their own, but going from 50% to 20% and adding in a long spoilage time wouldn't be that much of a nerf to it, only 4 HP worse than pierogies and way more convenient. It wouldn't become useless at all.

I'm gonna have to disagree here for the simple reason that next to noone uses medicine as is so giving less incentives only serve to hurt people even considering the skill after all it has so much to compete with for that skill point and again it's not like Walter doesn't already have a built in alternative in the portable tent or a long lasting perishable alternative in jerky.

[Walrusst]

If people got super offended at healing on par with some easily farmed in bulk foods you could make it so walter gets calmed down by using medicine on himself or others instead, half as much sanity as he heals people/himself.

Then at the very least he still recover some of the value he is losing out not just cooking all this stuff he is turning into medicine.

[somethin]

I think the butterfly strip itself is in an ok spot powerwise since it's character specific and kind of harder to mass produce since you're limited by butterfly spawn. I wouldn't mind reducing Walter's heal bonus from items though.

[Chewabacca]

Went and played a bit to see whether I was misremembering how quickly butterflies respawned and how easy it was to kill them. Looks like about 5 every 2 minutes with starter sling, assuming that you’re not deliberately seeking out any butterfly-heavy areas. I forgot that they don’t spawn during dusk, which is something, considering how long dusk goes for in both fall and spring and that they also won’t spawn in winter.

I don’t want these things to be nerfed to the degree that anyone who's not relying on them way too heavily will be affected, I just don’t want Walter to be able to spam chunky heals on himself forever because he spent a few minutes in the first couple of days killing butterflies. Heck, I’d even be happy with keeping the 45 HP and just giving them a spoilage timer of 20 days. Just so long as it’s not a once-and-done-forever thing.

1 hour ago, Soul7k said:

monkey tails exist. and i can mass produce them with Wormwood if i want to, but you are right in the sense that i can either make 3 or 4 bandages a day on average or make a bunch  of honey poultices at once then have to wait for a regrow period

You need to go to Moon Quay for monkeytails, and even Wormwood has to stop by the ruins for the bananas to make them. Yes, it’s more convenient than the swamp in the long run, but that’s still a decent amount of effort to go to, unlike these.

1 hour ago, Mysterious box said:

I'm gonna have to disagree here for the simple reason that next to noone uses medicine as is so giving less incentives only serve to hurt people even considering the skill after all it has so much to compete with for that skill point and again it's not like Walter doesn't already have a built in alternative in the portable tent or a long lasting perishable alternative in jerky.

The reason medicine isn’t often used is because the healing items we have are annoying to make. With the ashes for healing salves you have to wait for whatever you decide to set on fire to finish burning, if you aren’t watching the ashes will blow away, and it’d be easier to just use a couple glands to heal up without going through that process. Nobody wants to make the trip to the swamp for reeds and back to prototype honey poultices when they’re already injured. Tillweed salve means you have to grow tillweeds. Killing butterflies is far less annoying than any of those things. I guess it’s kind of hard to track them with the cursor to attack, but not sure if that’s just an issue with my brain working kind of slowly since people in general don’t seem to have much of a problem killing them.

59 minutes ago, Walrusst said:

If people got super offended at healing on par with some easily farmed in bulk foods you could make it so walter gets calmed down by using medicine on himself or others instead, half as much sanity as he heals people/himself.

Then at the very least he still recover some of the value he is losing out not just cooking all this stuff he is turning into medicine.

At least you have to think "oh boy, I need to recover HP/am about to fight a boss. Time to make a bunch of pierogi" with foods. You don't necessarily have them lying around already made. And as is, Walter gets back 21 HP more from making these into meds than from eating them, I think even if the HP was toned down a little (and I am not saying that a nerf would have to come in the form of it giving less HP) there would still be room for it to be good enough to get people to use it instead of just eating the wings.

I feel kind of weird about arguing so much about an item I'm pretty sure none of us have used, not gonna lie, but these still seem way too easy to stockpile.