Prevalence of AOE

[Jakepeng99]

Making aoe exclusive to a character was kinda stupid to begin with.

 

I just wish they add more viable options available for all characters. 

[YouKnowWho142]

22 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. 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."

i think it's good that there are new aoe options overall. I always thought that Wendy completely relying on aoe as part of her identity was problematic, since even though it's her specialty I don't think her entire character should revolve around it since it becomes more of a niche than anything. People can argue otherwise, but the vex really does help solidify Wendy with other combat characters somewhat while also being unique (she loses the high dps of wolf/wanda/maxwell for the ability to do aoe, dps seems to be generally around Wigfrid level who trades her dps for tankiness), so I am glad that the skill tree is helping with keeping Abigail (the source of Wendy's dps) alive and helping to make Abigail also have a more impactful role that can be more easily controlled (even if it can all use a little more work)

[IAmAFurrz]

23 hours ago, Civecilim said:

stripped Wendy of her "identity."

but abigail having aoe is not her identity. shes not the 'if you want aoe you use her' character.

abi has clear weaknesses and strengths, and her being available out the gate + cheap and easy to maintain in day to day, while also being weak to aoe boss attacks is clearly the design, now shes given new life by being given more abilities to control abigail and keeping her out of danger while also engaging in the danger yourself. thats her identity, the sister duo bonded beyond death helping eachother

[Debruh]

On 2/12/2025 at 10:21 PM, IAmAFurrz said:

but abigail having aoe is not her identity. shes not the 'if you want aoe you use her' character.

abi has clear weaknesses and strengths, and her being available out the gate + cheap and easy to maintain in day to day, while also being weak to aoe boss attacks is clearly the design, now shes given new life by being given more abilities to control abigail and keeping her out of danger while also engaging in the danger yourself. thats her identity, the sister duo bonded beyond death helping eachother

Her playstyle makes her unique from all the othe4 characters mentioned.

Also people act like a character is bad if they have a weaker version of stuff other characters can do 

If a character is a lousy Wolfgang, lousy wx, etc etc. With all that stuff. I feel like that makes them good. Especially if they achieve that stuff in a unique and fun way.

[Dyzrespect]

As it is the AoE on Walter is not as convenient as say Wendy. Abigail has a consistent, wide area of AoE damage, and probably the biggest benefit of AoE damage is AoE stunlocking small enemies. Walter's rounds will commonly only hit a few targets, inconsistently damage some targets over others, and thus cause constant target swapping if you are holding F. Also when you stop shooting, either when you need to move or something dies mid shot and the shot is cancelled, everything escapes and starts moving/attacking again. Each variation of AoE in the game has been pretty unique and interesting.

In a game where you can stack the same character, or use other characters perks like Winona's then swap to a different character, complaining about AoE "prevalence" seems weird to me. Will we be seeing more concerned posts about 'prevalence' of new bosses, 'prevalence' of new items, or 'prevalence' of variety as more new features are added to the game? Or will we just continue to see strangely Wendy-adjacent complaints?

[Walrusst]

Wortox's aoe is much more consistent and valuable in my experience than walters just because of how you nearly always profit off the soul hop explosions, with wolfgangs barbells easily being the worst.
The kings of AOE are still winowna and abigail just due to how spammy and stunlocky they are.

Wormwoods in a wierd place where its a great utility.

The recent rework has pointed out one thing, weapon right clicks (Or right click attacks like decoy bombs) feel very good when you start getting good enough that horde fights are more monotonous than challenging.

[IAmAFurrz]

On 2/19/2025 at 4:48 AM, Dyzrespect said:

As it is the AoE on Walter is not as convenient as say Wendy. Abigail has a consistent, wide area of AoE damage, and probably the biggest benefit of AoE damage is AoE stunlocking small enemies. Walter's rounds will commonly only hit a few targets, inconsistently damage some targets over others, and thus cause constant target swapping if you are holding F. Also when you stop shooting, either when you need to move or something dies mid shot and the shot is cancelled, everything escapes and starts moving/attacking again. Each variation of AoE in the game has been pretty unique and interesting.

In a game where you can stack the same character, or use other characters perks like Winona's then swap to a different character, complaining about AoE "prevalence" seems weird to me. Will we be seeing more concerned posts about 'prevalence' of new bosses, 'prevalence' of new items, or 'prevalence' of variety as more new features are added to the game? Or will we just continue to see strangely Wendy-adjacent complaints?

but you have woby, why are you not usin her lol its not nearly as hard as shown in the video

[Steorra]

On 2/19/2025 at 5:48 AM, Dyzrespect said:

As it is the AoE on Walter is not as convenient as say Wendy. Abigail has a consistent, wide area of AoE damage, and probably the biggest benefit of AoE damage is AoE stunlocking small enemies. Walter's rounds will commonly only hit a few targets, inconsistently damage some targets over others, and thus cause constant target swapping if you are holding F. Also when you stop shooting, either when you need to move or something dies mid shot and the shot is cancelled, everything escapes and starts moving/attacking again. Each variation of AoE in the game has been pretty unique and interesting.

In a game where you can stack the same character, or use other characters perks like Winona's then swap to a different character, complaining about AoE "prevalence" seems weird to me. Will we be seeing more concerned posts about 'prevalence' of new bosses, 'prevalence' of new items, or 'prevalence' of variety as more new features are added to the game? Or will we just continue to see strangely Wendy-adjacent complaints?

Walter without Woby is similar like Wendy without Abby.

 

And I do feel it's quite amazing and unique that Walter could summon Shadow Tentacles for multiple target at once shot. It's very impressive to me. Maybe not strong, but pretty fun and cool.

[Cheggf]

I think anyone with really strong AoE should just get it removed. Most of the things you said are rather limited in efficacy and/or price. Stuff like Wolfgang throwing dumbbells is alright, but clunky and inefficient compared to Abigail. Stuff like Willow's Biden Blast or whatever it's actually called should just be removed since that's encroaching on Wendy too much.

Or maybe I'm just being a hater on that one ability since I can't think of anything else off the top of my head that's an AoE attack I would want removed.

[Yaorin yon]

On 2/13/2025 at 2:51 AM, kroban said:

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.

After my experience using a variety of characters like Willow, Woodie, and Wortox, I can only tell you that Wendy's AOE loses its advantage the moment you enter the game (not only are they easy to use, but they can also quickly drive resource accumulation, resulting in their next AOE cost becoming lower and lower each time they use it, while Wendy is the opposite). Wolfgang's AOE may not be easy to use, but his single strike can kill weak creatures, which means he doesn't need to rely on his AOE. And if he does use it (a 170-point AOE), it's enough to kill creatures like bees and monkeys.

Without AOE, Wendy has nothing left.

[Walrusst]

I mean aoe being passive, almost free, and an augment to your actions you take while you take them its not that big of a deal.

Since sure aggressive abigail is a liability in hard fights but if you learn the quirks of passive abigail its still an extra free AOE that triggers only when the monsters are aggro'd on you, which makes your kiting margins a lot easier to do, your stun locks a lot longer, and gives you 10% more damage.
Wendy still  has the problem of starting easy but having a difficulty cliff once you have to learn exotic AI behavior to do bossfights, but surface value characters that trivialize the basic gameplay having to learn advanced stuff in order to enable her to do late game content solo isn't... New for any character

 

Still I did learn another AOE today: Wormwood can throw bramble suits on dummies and hit them with a fishing rod to nuke groups of enemies. Its a really weird one but it makes on foot wormwood a bit more fun once you learn to keep a dummy on hand since it gives you something that beefalo wormwood doesn't readily have (Since you can't place the dummy while mounted in a panic.)

[ZennyZen]

Well since Rictus exists, you do need a way to deal AOE damage for each survivor. Unless you just resort to blowing up gunpowder in the caves and trigger earthquakes with boulders.

[Anis5240]

15 minutes ago, ZennyZen said:

you do need a way to deal AOE damage for each survivor

or just don't bother and simply slap a lightbulb and a spear inside hutch

[ZennyZen]

32 minutes ago, Anis5240 said:

or just don't bother and simply slap a lightbulb and a spear inside hutch

A bit roundabout and finicky, but it will work. Instead of giving every survivor an innate method to deal with AoE-required enemies(they might add more) to even it out, they just need to explore the cave and get lucky to find Hutch then get Rictus to de-aggro you and lock on the spikey dude.

[Bumber64]

12 hours ago, ZennyZen said:

Well since Rictus exists, you do need a way to deal AOE damage for each survivor. Unless you just resort to blowing up gunpowder in the caves and trigger earthquakes with boulders.

Hound tooth trap.

[Blue Tangerine]

4 hours ago, Bumber64 said:

Hound tooth trap.

In fact I have seen many people use spiky hutch to deal with rictus, I must praise the first person who thought of doing this, it is a brilliant idea, before this, I would habitually choose music box hutch to restore my sanity and enjoy the music for a while