Prevalence of AOE

[Civecilim]

Not really a suggestion as much as this is an observation, but I have noticed that Wendy has lost a lot of her uniqueness/identity in that AOE is a lot more common than it used to be. A few years ago, your two options for AOE were essentially weather pain, or play Wendy and use Abigail.

 

It seems like now more characters than not have an AOE option, usually granted by their skill tree. Some examples I can quickly think of are Wolfgang being able to throw a dumbbell, Woodie being able to do his moose fist slam, Walter and Wortox now getting stinger/glass bullets and soul boomerangs, Wormwood making bramble traps, and Winona making catapults.

 

AOE is a very nice quality of life perk to be able to use, and it's nice that we have been getting more options. While I hate to add yet another "boohoo Wendy" post to the pile, I haven't seen anyone else discuss how the prevalence of AOE has, in my view, stripped Wendy of her "identity."

 

While many characters overlap with each other, like how wurt and Webber both do minions, Maxwell, wurt, and Woodie all excel at tree chopping, etc, AOE was (and still is?) Wendy's entire everything. I feel like the addition of more "unique" (not necessarily powerful) mechanics to Wendy's kit would make a lot of people happier. Plagiarizing WX's cheap moggle powers seems like an attempt to do this, but I feel like there should be... something else?

[Well-met]

This would easily be fixable if skill trees were bound to the server rather than your game.

This way non-wendies can't use all these wacky skills they don't deserve or need straight out of day 1.

 

[Peasant]

Now days aoe is getting cheaper and cheaper, I wouldn't be surprised if they provide webber a way of aoe one day

[Steorra]

6 hours ago, Civecilim said:

Not really a suggestion as much as this is an observation, but I have noticed that Wendy has lost a lot of her uniqueness/identity in that AOE is a lot more common than it used to be.

Yes, this is an important argument toward Wendy's topic. Many were thought that Wendy's tree is "enough", but at the same time many had ignored that the "AoE" is already not a privilege of Wendy.

Wendy should get more impactful features from her tree rather than simply numerical enhancements. And this is why many Wendy players feeling disappointed with current tree.

[aidankocherhans]

Abigail isn't just aoe in Together, she's also a support that boosts your damage

[Peasant]

Just now, aidankocherhans said:

Abigail isn't just aoe in Together, she's also a support that boosts your damage

That I'm afraid is bringing another problem. Basically Wendy is all about fighting, and have almost no QoL benefits. Yet her ability to fight is entirely relied on Abigail and beefalo, unlike Wigfrid and Wolfgang who rely only on themselves. When facing post rift bosses who can instantly destroy Abigail and knockback Wendy out of beefalo, she becomes no better than wes, except for having more hp.

[aidankocherhans]

28 minutes ago, YXukun said:

That I'm afraid is bringing another problem. Basically Wendy is all about fighting, and have almost no QoL benefits. Yet her ability to fight is entirely relied on Abigail and beefalo, unlike Wigfrid and Wolfgang who rely only on themselves. When facing post rift bosses who can instantly destroy Abigail and knockback Wendy out of beefalo, she becomes no better than wes, except for having more hp.

A beefalo isn't required for Wendy, and the tree gives plenty of ways to keep Abigail alive easier

[cyjs]

27 minutes ago, aidankocherhans said:

A beefalo isn't required for Wendy, and the tree gives plenty of ways to keep Abigail alive easier

At first I would have agreed, but now it's so weakened，The designer focused on strange balancesin，Not for a more interesting balance

[ColdHeaven]

While it's true the are more AOE in the game, they remain somewhat of a luxury or with a decent drawback instead of it being free.

Walter have AOE ammos but they are not available at the start and they are not free, they do cost time to gather the materials needed

Wolfgang's AOE is hard to use and not very practical.

 

Moose's AOE is strong and practical but it has a hefty sanity cost and prevent you from picking loots that can be eaten

Wortox's AOE cost at least 3 skill points

 

[Civecilim]

2 hours ago, aidankocherhans said:

Abigail isn't just aoe in Together, she's also a support that boosts your damage

If you wanted damage, you would pick Wolfgang. That's his primary selling point. Maybe Wanda. Wanda if you can tolerate worse fighting in exchange for teleports.

It used to be the case that if you wanted AOE, you would pick Wendy. She was the only option. Now if you want AOE, you close your eyes and pick a character at random and you probably get it. By my estimate, about HALF the total cast now has access to a cheap and serviceable AOE.

[ColdHeaven]

2 minutes ago, Civecilim said:

If you wanted damage, you would pick Wolfgang. That's his primary selling point. Maybe Wanda. Wanda if you can tolerate worse fighting in exchange for teleports.

It used to be the case that if you wanted AOE, you would pick Wendy. She was the only option. Now if you want AOE, you close your eyes and pick a character at random and you probably get it. By my estimate, about HALF the total cast now has access to a cheap and serviceable AOE.

Less bias more evidence

[Civecilim]

2 minutes ago, ColdHeaven said:

While it's true the are more AOE in the game, they remain somewhat of a luxury or with a decent drawback instead lf it being free.

Walter have AOE ammos but they are not available at the start and they are not free, they do cost time to gather the materials needed

Wolfgang's AOE is hard to use and not very practical.

 

Moose's AOE is strong and practical but it has a hefty sanity cost and prevent you from picking loots that can be eaten

Wortox's AOE cost at least 3 skill points

 

I would be less offended if Wendy had more to offer like the characters you mention. Everybody says Walter's skill tree is pretty cool (and I would agree). If you take shadow Woby and butterfly bandage, you can be lousy Wortox: you have cheap healing and teleports. If you take Woby chops and mines, you can be lousy Wurt: you have a mining and chopping assistant. If you take stinger bullets, you can be lousy Wendy: you have AOE.

What other gimmicks does Wendy have?

1. You can be lousy Wolfgang? You deal more damage than Wilson under certain conditions.

Thanks to the skill tree,

2. You can be a lousy WX? You have a moggle that isn't a moggle but still requires refueling and your headshot.

3. You can be a lousy Walter and ""cheaply"" attack at a distance with "attack at," but on a cooldown and only if the enemy is not powerful/only with many many healing potions. You also have access to the healing potion wreath effect which is like a scuffed jellybean. Compare this to the butterfly bandage.

4. You can be a superior dead person and haunt things (on a cooldown) without having to actually die.

Spelling it all out, it would appear that there is maybe a wider variety of effects than I initially thought, but it's all needlessly locked behind many layers of inconvenience.

18 minutes ago, ColdHeaven said:

Wortox's AOE cost at least 3 skill points

I would LOVE to be able to spend 3-6 skill points for an unlimited durability lazy explorer that doesn't cost sanity.

18 minutes ago, ColdHeaven said:

Less bias more evidence

I'm assuming that this means that you think my count of "half" is bad (there are 18 characters):

1. Willow has a flamethrower.

2. Wolfgang has a dumbbell.

3. Woodie has charge and slam.

4. Maxwell shadow prison is soft AOE.

5. Wigfrid has spear charge.

6. Winona has catapults.

7. Wortox has decoys and boomerang souls.

8. Wormwood has bramble armor, sleeping mushrooms, and bramble traps.

9. Wendy is Wendy.

10. Walter gets glass and stinger bullets.

3 hours ago, YXukun said:

Now days aoe is getting cheaper and cheaper, I wouldn't be surprised if they provide webber a way of aoe one day

waiting for spitters to be made to target 5 enemies simultaneously

[Malfario]

3 hours ago, YXukun said:

Now days aoe is getting cheaper and cheaper, I wouldn't be surprised if they provide webber a way of aoe one day

He already has lunnar spiders for aoe attacks, and technically you could say webber and wurt dont need aoe by virtue of raising armies

[Civecilim]

2 minutes ago, Malfario said:

He already has lunnar spiders for aoe attacks, and technically you could say webber and wurt dont need aoe by virtue of raising armies

I completely forgot that lunar spiders exist

[ColdHeaven]

2 hours ago, Civecilim said:

I would be less offended if Wendy had more to offer like the characters you mention. Everybody says Walter's skill tree is pretty cool (and I would agree). If you take shadow Woby and butterfly bandage, you can be lousy Wortox: you have cheap healing and teleports. If you take Woby chops and mines, you can be lousy Wurt: you have a mining and chopping assistant. If you take stinger bullets, you can be lousy Wendy: you have AOE.

What other gimmicks does Wendy have?

1. You can be lousy Wolfgang? You deal more damage than Wilson under certain conditions.

Thanks to the skill tree,

2. You can be a lousy WX? You have a moggle that isn't a moggle but still requires refueling and your headshot.

3. You can be a lousy Walter and ""cheaply"" attack at a distance with "attack at," but on a cooldown and only if the enemy is not powerful/only with many many healing potions. You also have access to the healing potion wreath effect which is like a scuffed jellybean. Compare this to the butterfly bandage.

4. You can be a superior dead person and haunt things (on a cooldown) without having to actually die.

Spelling it all out, it would appear that there is maybe a wider variety of effects than I initially thought, but it's all needlessly locked behind many layers of inconvenience.

5. Lousy maxwell with AOE spook

6.lousy wigfrid with team damage buff

7.lousy webber with ghost army

 

"I would LOVE to be able to spend 3-6 skill points for an unlimited durability lazy explorer that doesn't cost sanity."

I don't see how this is equivalent when wortox has to spend 3 skill points to have a "lousy" AOE. 

I would also love for wortox to spend 3-6 points to tame a ghost that has abigail abilities

[Civecilim]

7 hours ago, ColdHeaven said:

"I would LOVE to be able to spend 3-6 skill points for an unlimited durability lazy explorer that doesn't cost sanity."

I don't see how this is equivalent when wortox has to spend 3 skill points to have a "lousy" AOE. 

Well that's why you would spend 6, because if 3 skill points is such a colossal cost, 6+ is sure to be reasonable. It could be made "lousy" in fairness, though I'm not sure what that would look like. Maybe the teleport has a 2 minute cooldown? Such a teleport would be difficult to use against fuelweaver but could still be used to cross gaps (I'm not actually suggesting that Wendy get a teleport of this nature, just pointing out that an inclusion like this would feel slightly absurd). That being said, Winona, Wigfrid, and now Walter all have gap crossing technology so maybe a gap cross wouldn't be that insane? Ideally it would be flavored in such a way that doesn't blatantly rip off Wortox. I've seen it be suggested a few times for Wendy and Abigail to be able to swap places, which is effectively the same as a soul hop but you have to combine it with "attack at."

7 hours ago, ColdHeaven said:

5. Lousy maxwell with AOE spook

 

7 hours ago, ColdHeaven said:

7.lousy webber with ghost army

These are fair points. I neglected to consider that bigspooks exists. They're not outstandingly amazing but they're far from worthless.

7 hours ago, ColdHeaven said:

6.lousy wigfrid with team damage buff

I was imagining the balance in a single player setting which is admittedly maybe not a fair thing to do for a game with "together" in the name. You might also be able to get the buff to stick for longer if the boss is targeting other players instead of Abigail. Wortox in my view is the ultimate multiplayer character while still being very functional alone, and I am excited to see how the Walter 'send away Woby' perk will work (the perk that still has use alone because you can apparently send him to a chest?) Are multiplier exclusive perks highly valued (not trying to be sarcastic, I'm genuinely asking because I don't know)?

[Balter]

*Sigh, I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again. Walter doesn’t need AoE

[Walrusst]

The aoe is strange on walter for really only being there as an excuse to fuel queen bee rushes. Otherwise its largely just like, these weird ultra budget rounds for daily carry and use while hunting. Since well, people are still arguing about whether his budget aoe round or his speedrun summoning bullets round should be the only damaging round ever used, we are in a weird place where like.

Now how do you get bog standard characters whose only combat option is the slap to not feel mad jealous.

For other characters getting AOES, I feel its partially a response to there being like a 50% play rate for the character who has had an AOE for the longest. So more AOE might very well be a response to some attempt to improve players sticking around.

[Chewabacca]

I think the stinger rounds are helpful because between them and the increased ammo production it means that Walter can fully break free from the Pig King in the very early game. Playing multiplayer used to be a real pain if the main base got set up anywhere not fairly close to PK. Moonglass is high on the damage end for a round that already offers so much, though, yeah. Wouldn't mind if it was somewhere between gold and marble rounds in terms of damage.

For the other characters: Wolfgang has to run over and pick up the dumbbells to keep using them, Wortox has to do some fancy coordination in order to use his soul boomerangs, Wormwood's bramble traps need to be set up ahead of time and don't automatically follow you around at a 0-inventory slot cost, Winona's catapults also need that set-up and their AOE damage is pretty weak.

[Walrusst]

27 minutes ago, Chewabacca said:

Wortox has to do some fancy coordination in order to use his soul boomerangs, 

Admittedly 75% of my fights as nice wortox are me just annihilating entire enemy spawners with just decoy bombs for a 8-12 soul profits. No weapon use.
You can make a pretty busted profits off of just your day one exploring if you look for enemies that like to bunch up as a group....

His farming level is getting close to wendy, just more involved.

As for moonglass rounds, I wouldn't complain if they lost 10 damage given how once you have them you have thousands of them. Its bizzare how quickly you just forget marble is a resource after that point.

[sosiskaKi]

14 hours ago, YXukun said:

Now days aoe is getting cheaper and cheaper, I wouldn't be surprised if they provide webber a way of aoe one day

He's already can. Shattered spiders.

[Maxil20]

29 minutes ago, Walrusst said:

As for moonglass rounds, I wouldn't complain if they lost 10 damage given how once you have them you have thousands of them. Its bizzare how quickly you just forget marble is a resource after that point.

I don’t really think the argument of “you can have thousands of them” works well, since you can realistically have this for any round. You can make thousands of cursed rounds once you’ve made it to the ruins (a stack of thule, if hammered from walls into fragments, provides enough for 3600 rounds with the extra ammo perk, and it’s not like Walter has a particularly hard time farming passive nightmares to stock up on the bullets). This is especially relevant if you have the mimic band to occasionally conserve ammo.

 

[Walrusst]

8 minutes ago, Maxil20 said:

I don’t really think the argument of “you can have thousands of them” works well, since you can realistically have this for any round. You can make thousands of cursed rounds once you’ve made it to the ruins (a stack of thule, if hammered from walls into fragments, provides enough for 3600 rounds with the extra ammo perk, and it’s not like Walter has a particularly hard time farming passive nightmares to stock up on the bullets). This is especially relevant if you have the mimic band to occasionally conserve ammo.

 

i mean given how every round we get the criticism that its not another cursed rounds I actually feel its a valid criticism for cursed rounds too.

Try going 5 minutes saying you enjoy gunpowder rounds and you will see people complaining about how it stacks up against his cursed round speedrun path. Putting cursed rounds on the skill tree isn't even a valid option because if we did everyone would take lucky ammo (Since that is where they would likely go.)

[Maxil20]

2 minutes ago, Walrusst said:

i mean given how every round we get the criticism that its not another cursed rounds I actually feel its a valid criticism for cursed rounds too.

Try going 5 minutes saying you enjoy gunpowder rounds and you will see people complaining about how it stacks up against his cursed round speedrun path.

I think admittedly it’s just from a good chunk of rounds being in a more oddball spot. I think the concept of things like gunpowder rounds is neat, I just wish the “crit” hits were more impactful (and I know a good chunk of people have wanted that…).

[kroban]

I agree that Abigail's aoe kind of lost its uniqueness now, but AOE being something unique to Wendy was extremely unfair for the rest of the characters. Like, I remember in the old old days, before all the skill trees and Maxwell's rework, the way to kill Bee Queen easily was either having a Wendy, swapping to Wendy, or stacking 20 Winona's catapults, any other option was pretty much a huge pain.

In a game where you are almost constantly farming mobs in AOE (for example werepigs and spider for their drops), theres also threats where aoe is the most effective (like hounds, vargs, pirate raids, and shadow monkeys in ruins), and some important bosses require a GOOD aoe (Bee Queen, Dragonfly with no walls, Crab King and Fuelweaver), I think all characters should have an aoe in their basekits, to varying degrees.

Which is kind of where we at right now, Wendy still is the character that starts with AOE since day 1 and can mantain it for basically no cost, other characters like Walter and Willow require farming, Wolfgang's dumbells aoe is hard to land, Woodie only has AOE in Moose form, Wormwood needs his armor or to have traps set up, Wortox's aoe requires good skills with the tp, and so on.