The stackable slowing effect erode Walter's identify and creating a Maxwell II.

[Dr. Safety]

31 minutes ago, Steorra said:

I just did same thing what other people did during this beta. Why I could not express my balance opinions but others can? I said Wortox's Lunar Swindle is imbalance like Bone Armor and boring, it need rework. Which was an old argument of "Bone Armor is OP" happened in general discussion. I said soul jar is downside fixing for Wortox just like what others said during the beta. I focusing on Walter's stackable slowing effect continuously since I do think it erode the main enjoyment of the battle of DST. 

 

22 minutes ago, Steorra said:

Not exactly. Walter should be taking hits to the face if you have not enough skill level. I knew someone is hating the comparison towards Wendy. But this is just a similar thing - We do knew that "Abby should not being brainrotly invisible" right? I won't repeat the reason of this argument since it already happened too much during this beta. But it is just work for Walter as well - Walter should not being such easy to avoid his main downside punishment.

The problem would goes deeper if you want to talk about this. It's about the basic interaction logic of boss fight design in DST. Wigfrid and Marble Suit is okay in this aspect since they still follow the basic interact logic of boss fight. But range weapons are not. It's a generally problem of all range weapon. But it's become completely broken once a range weapon has ability to slowing the target a lot and having extremely high flexibility at the same time.

I'll take the bait since I'm one of the people who argued against keeping downsides as downsides, so let me clarify the difference between this and the Wendy thing.

Slowdown rounds don't make Walter gain sanity when he gets hit. If they did, I'd be right there with you arguing against it

[Walrusst]

10 minutes ago, Steorra said:

 

I must missed something, would you mind to share your idea details here for me?

 

Yes, I do agree with this point.

 

Check my post honey rounds->slurtle rounds.

Its essentially, having access to both gem bullets and honey bullets makes slows too cheap early on, and while icker is broken when stacked with either of the other two at the very least the gem bullets are sort of expensive where as the honey rounds are practically infinite.
So I proposed replacing his honey slow with a bullet type that makes the enemy weaker to elemental damages like fire and lightning.

Since this massively increases is playstyle variety on a team, or solo. Since, now his shock bullets are useful, he can get more mileage out of the fire staff, he can help warly/wigfrid/willow use their unique elemental abilities (Such as volt goat jelly or the like,) and if you want to be strange and quirky now the morning stars an excellent walter weapon.

[Steorra]

9 minutes ago, Dyzrespect said:

Antlion - Incredible : Useless

Tbh, once I found your argument had completely ignored the slowing round is "range attack" here, I lost my interest to read the rest part here.

How could a slingshot become "useless" toward Antlion?

[Walrusst]

1 minute ago, Steorra said:

Tbh, once I found your argument had completely ignored the slowing round is "range attack" here, I lost my interest to read the rest part here.

How could a slingshot become "useless" toward Antlion?

They are focusing on if slows are more useful than fancy armor here, as slows are this threads topic.

[Steorra]

9 minutes ago, Walrusst said:

Check my post honey rounds->slurtle rounds.

Its essentially, having access to both gem bullets and honey bullets makes slows too cheap early on, and while icker is broken when stacked with either of the other two at the very least the gem bullets are sort of expensive where as the honey rounds are practically infinite.
So I proposed replacing his honey slow with a bullet type that makes the enemy weaker to elemental damages like fire and lightning.

Since this massively increases is playstyle variety on a team, or solo. Since, now his shock bullets are useful, he can get more mileage out of the fire staff, he can help warly/wigfrid/willow use their unique elemental abilities (Such as volt goat jelly or the like,) and if you want to be strange and quirky now the morning stars an excellent walter weapon.

Your idea sounds healthy and fun! Thanks for sharing and thanks for your kindness opinions! Yes I do like the idea to make a character have some privileges for team work. It always won't do impact to the gameplay (since the team work itself already makes the game become much easier than solo) but do encourage you to help your friends in battle, and it would brings new potential team co-op playstyle.

6 minutes ago, Walrusst said:

They are focusing on if slows are more useful than fancy armor here, as slows are this threads topic.

Not exactly. Walter's stackable slowing effect had range feature, and it would helps alot to other range playstyle. All these combined made the problem I worried, but nit only the slowing rounds themselves.

We knew Wickerbottom had ability to slowing enemy by creating spider web. It's low efficiency in most scenarios and not broken. Since it's not a remotely casting effect.

 

Ah, I'm sorry, is "range attack" would be misunderstood if I use the "range" for describing the remotely applying feature of the slowing rounds? My English is bad...

[Walrusst]

Just now, Steorra said:

Your idea sounds healthy and fun! Thanks for sharing and thanks for your kindness opinions! Yes I do like the idea to make a character have some privileges for team work. It always won't do impact to the gameplay (since the team work itself already makes the game become much easier than solo) but do encourage you to help your friends in battle, and it would brings new potential team co-op playstyle.

It also buffs useless options walter has (Shock bullets,) and makes him really want to touch on a whole host of odd items that are rarely seen like our funny illuminating mace and the like.

Think.
Walter would be able to have fun with fire darts. Fire darts.
When was the last time you saw people speak of those fondly.

[YouKnowWho142]

I am nowhere near qualified to participate in this discussion but it seems like the slowing rounds are Walter’s way to compensate for how he’s generally punished for facetanking? I would agree if people thought they should be more interactive, but it seems more like it’s just to reinforce his playstyle. Since slow down rounds have always been a part of his basekit it seems like you’re encouraged to use them that way, and if you’re playing with others who can facetank then slowing the enemy becomes significantly less impactful. It seems more or less fine

[Steorra]

12 minutes ago, Dr. Safety said:

 

I'll take the bait since I'm one of the people who argued against keeping downsides as downsides, so let me clarify the difference between this and the Wendy thing.

Slowdown rounds don't make Walter gain sanity when he gets hit. If they did, I'd be right there with you arguing against it

I appreciate for your sincerity. 

Slowdown rounds don't make Walter gain sanity when he gets hit

Yes it won't. It just make Walter become untouchable for most bosses once you stack the slowing effects to the target.

Being untouchable = no need to gain sanity = downside fixing.

[aidankocherhans]

1 hour ago, Dyzrespect said:

There was also no fire burning for the past 5 years about slowdown rounds being game breaking, despite purple gems burning holes in people's chests for the entire time, so why is it just now an issue if it's on par with Shadow Prison (another thing rarely seen).

Slowdown rounds weren't stackable or aoe before, they barely did anything before now

[Debruh]

11 minutes ago, Dr. Safety said:

 

I'll take the bait since I'm one of the people who argued against keeping downsides as downsides, so let me clarify the difference between this and the Wendy thing.

Slowdown rounds don't make Walter gain sanity when he gets hit. If they did, I'd be right there with you arguing against it

Thanks to Dr Safety for letting me this tidbit that I missed 

37 minutes ago, Steorra said:

Walter should be taking hits to the face if you have not enough skill level. I knew someone is hating the comparison towards Wendy. But this is just a similar thing - We do knew that "Abby should not being brainrotly invisible" right? I won't repeat the reason of this argument since it already happened too much during this beta. But it is just work for Walter as well - Walter should not being such easy to avoid his main downside punishment.

Walter being ranged and The problem of Abby being invincible are different. Abby being invincible isn't bad because it's Wendy not interacting with her downside, but not with her playstyle.

Downsides in DST aren't really downsides. They're just soft problems to make you use the character's intended playstyle and use their upsides. And often, the character's downsides is actually something they excel at. Here's three examples. A minor one, obvious one, and one that's not so obvious.

What is Winona's downside? Crafting slower when at low hunger? Not really a downside. But it exists to encourage you to eat, to benefit from her faster crafting at higher hunger levels.

What's Willow's downside? Being more vulnerable to cold and freezing, etc? Well, that's also easily counteracted by her upsides. Being able to hug a burning tree for max heat. Bernie, being one of the few, if not the only, handheld items with insulation. Being able to make mini dwarf stars easily. Her downsides force you to use her upsides. Which is why people just say 'Pick Willow' when someone is struggling with Winter. Her playstyle is fire.

What's Webber's downside? Being a monster. But what does that mean exactly? Means that he can't recruit pigmen and bunnymen, and is hated by them. Like how other characters are by spiders. This pushes the player to shy away from them, and lean into his unique followers, spiders. Who are better, better damage, easier recruiting, and forever friends. That's why he's THE follower character. His playstyle is of taming spiders and interacting with them in a more in depth way than other characters do with pigmen or bunnymen

What is Wendy's benefits? Her ghost sister who she fights with and deals above average damage when fighting with, due to vex. That's what her downside pushes you to do. Since she deals less damage on her own. She has to rely on her sister, and on beef. Abby being invincible harms this playstyle, as what a playstyle that's supposed to be about working in tandem with your sister, turns into Wilson with Wigfrid damage and aoe.

What is Walter's benefits? A mount of infinite ride time and his slingshot. And his downside pushes you into using the both of them.

The argument shouldn't be 'mah characters downsides!' But, is Walter's intended playstyle of being a ranged character interesting?

19 minutes ago, Steorra said:

Slowdown rounds don't make Walter gain sanity when he gets hit

Yes it won't. It just make Walter become untouchable for most bosses once you stack the slowing effects to the target.

Being untouchable = no need to gain sanity = downside fixing.

Really well put.

[Jakepeng99]

1 hour ago, Dyzrespect said:

Wilson: Marble suit
Willow: Bernie + Lunar Capstone Spell

Wolfgang: Marble suit + 2x faster boss death

Wendy: Abigail AOE Stunlock + Beefalo

WX-78: Bramble Husk + Electric Recoil

Wickerbottom: 50000 Tentacles

Woodie: Eat 3 Monster meat
Wes: Beefalo

Maxwell: Shadow Prison
Wigfrid: Sit there and sing
Webber: 50000 spiders

Winona: Sit there and sleep
Warly: Wilson but a nicer voice
Wortox: Dodge every attack with soul hop
Wormwood: Bramble Husk + Blooming + Poop
Wurt: 50000 merms
Wanda: backstep and/or shadow armor

Walter: icker rounds, walls, and/or slowdown/honey rounds

Can you honestly say Walter is a standout on this list of ways to nullify damage/boss mechanics?

This list confuses me

[Steorra]

9 minutes ago, Debruh said:

The argument shouldn't be 'mah characters downsides!' But, is Walter's intended playstyle of being a ranged character interesting?

You have gave a nice argument. I's take your most words here.

The only debatable thing for me is that - is the "slowing target, kiting target, shooting tatget, but no interact with target" playstyle is interesting? It could be interesting if Klei fixing the ranged weapon combat interaction by adding new mechanics to all old bosses. But I guess this would be far more harder than to adjust the slowing effect of Walter.

[Chewabacca]

27 minutes ago, Steorra said:

https://b23.tv/7zJGZS1

I guess you need this as well. I'm sorry that I was missed your replies here.

You're linking me to a video I can't watch, and besides: I didn’t say that Walter rushing the ruins pre-day 10 was impossible, I said it was more difficult than you seem to believe. I do know one video that shows a ruins rush with the new Walter before day 10, but the slingshot doesn’t get used and the player is unable to keep Woby in her larger form throughout the run, both of which already make an early Walter ruins rush difficult because ranged combat and speed are 2/3 of his main perks, and a Walter who gets hit at all isn’t going to be able to keep his 3rd one (no sanity drain while uninjured).

16 minutes ago, YouKnowWho142 said:

I am nowhere near qualified to participate in this discussion but it seems like the slowing rounds are Walter’s way to compensate for how he’s generally punished for facetanking? I would agree if people thought they should be more interactive, but it seems more like it’s just to reinforce his playstyle. Since slow down rounds have always been a part of his basekit it seems like you’re encouraged to use them that way, and if you’re playing with others who can facetank then slowing the enemy becomes significantly less impactful. It seems more or less fine

Ironically I think pretty much all of the Walter players who have chimed in here don't really care too much about the slowing rounds (not trying to speak for anyone but several of them have said so). It's just that it's a bit annoying to have Walter portrayed as this omnipotent god from out of the gate when no, you do have to wait and do some buildup before he can grow strong.

Running down the list of Walter's slows just for completion's sake: honey is available and strong early game, though I've been told this does not stack with itself and because of Walter's bee allergy you probably also have to take the AOE ammo skill to farm this safely. The devs in their wisdom have also bundled the honey ammo with Walter's most overpriced ammo, shockscrap, meaning that on a tree with so much to offer grabbing honey is a sacrifice. The slow-down rounds are locked behind the shadow manipulator (making them not early game) but strong when stacked. The stacking has not always been a part of his base kit and up to this beta they were pretty much useless. Icker is very strong and stacks, but is locked behind a shadow alignment and the shadow rifts in every world. Hopefully the cheese that lets Walter basically skip the Fuelweaver fight will get patched so that opening the rifts means that Walter has to beat Fuelweaver in that tiny little arena every world, and it looks like lunar Woby is also strong enough to be a decent reason for players to go for a lunar alignment instead. I wouldn't be opposed to the stacking effect getting a nerf though, since slow-downs are available pre-rifts and it's not like it's all that fun to use or that Woby is slow enough to need the slows to be really powerful. Just pointing out that there are decent costs here.

[Steorra]

1 minute ago, Chewabacca said:

You're linking me to a video I can't watch, and besides: I didn’t say that Walter rushing the ruins pre-day 10 was impossible, I said it was more difficult than you seem to believe. I do know one video that shows a ruins rush with the new Walter before day 10, but the slingshot doesn’t get used and the player is unable to keep Woby in her larger form throughout the run, both of which already make an early Walter ruins rush difficult because ranged combat and speed are 2/3 of his main perks, and a Walter who gets hit at all isn’t going to be able to keep his 3rd one (no sanity drain while uninjured).

The video was just an example to show how to clear ALL ruins in day 10 by using the slingshot 

Not meant to be offending, do you know that charging shot could kill most mobs in ruins out of those mobs' veiw range?

[Debruh]

9 minutes ago, Steorra said:

You have gave a nice argument. I's take your most words here.

The only debatable thing for me is that - is the "slowing target, kiting target, shooting tatget, but no interact with target" playstyle is interesting? It could be interesting if Klei fixing the ranged weapon combat interaction by adding new mechanics to all old bosses. But I guess this would be far more harder than to adjust the slowing effect of Walter.

Yea that’s where the debate should focus on. Imo, it's not really tbh. 

[Dyzrespect]

3 minutes ago, Jakepeng99 said:

This list confuses me

I'm sorry to hear that buddy.

 

3 minutes ago, Chewabacca said:

Ironically I think pretty much all of the Walter players who have chimed in here don't really care too much about the slowing rounds (not trying to speak for anyone but several of them have said so). It's just that it's a bit annoying to have Walter portrayed as this omnipotent god from out of the gate when no, you do have to wait and do some buildup before he can grow strong.

The main thing that makes this whole thing come off as a troll is that slowdown is such a niche benefit for everyone besides Walter himself and maybe Winona. Everyone else still has to dodge, everyone else still takes damage, in 90% of scenarios slowdown simply lets Walter function as intended by kiting, or make certain boss abilities easier to manage like charges or dashes. Also the OP in their opening statement can recognize Maxwell exists, even though they're mad about it, but still concede that the game is not broken because of his shadow prison.

The best possible outcome of nerfing slowdown of any variety is making combat more tedious for Walter. Not more "balanced", not more fun, just more tedious. If you don't like that Walter can kite things, the issue is with the slingshot as a whole and you should just tackle that. However I can also concede that the different slowdown ammos stacking together with each other can probably reliably break some stuff, but there's a million ways to break this game I don't see the point in making the character worse to try to avoid the inevitable.

[Chewabacca]

4 minutes ago, Steorra said:

The video was just an example to show how to clear ALL ruins in day 10 by using the slingshot 

Not meant to be offending, do you know that charging shot could kill most mobs in ruins out of those mobs' veiw range?

I do but I also know that apart from that the only upside the frame has is that it saves on ammo, because in the amount of time spent charging it you could fire 2 shots if the grip was upgraded at all. So: still not useful enough to be worth a skill point, IMO.

Also, kudos to the person who actually used the slingshot to clear the ruins by day 10, that's pretty impressive. I don't think that they should be taken as an example of a normal Walter player because the amount of skill and luck needed there is pretty high.

[Steorra]

4 hours ago, Chewabacca said:

I do but I also know that apart from that the only upside the frame has is that it saves on ammo, because in the amount of time spent charging it you could fire 2 shots if the grip was upgraded at all. So: still not useful enough to be worth a skill point, IMO.

Eh, the video is posted at 12/6/2024, at that moment we have no Woby rework. 

 

4 hours ago, Chewabacca said:

I don't think that they should be taken as an example of a normal Walter player because the amount of skill and luck needed there is pretty high.

I don't think to kill the clockworks far away from them by remotely ranged attack is a hard thing. The clockwork would just try come to you ad lost interest to you once they moved a distance from their spawn point.

Yes, clear ALL ruins in day 10 is hard for average. But do a ruin rush (leave most things be) in day 10 is not.

[Guille6785]

6 hours ago, Steorra said:

https://b23.tv/7zJGZS1

I guess you need this as well. I'm sorry that I was missed your replies here.

what is your obsession with using other people's gameplay to justify arguments when you yourself can't do the things in those videos

[Civecilim]

8 hours ago, Steorra said:

Since this ability simply disabled every enemies and making the downside of Maxwell become meaningless. Now the same thing happened to Walter

Ha, I didn't read this post before writing: 

 

[Steorra]

47 minutes ago, Guille6785 said:

what is your obsession with using other people's gameplay to justify arguments when you yourself can't do the things in those videos

I need not to do the thing as "All clear" of the ruin. The video is enough to show how easy to use Walter to do a ruin rush (which need not all clear) in day 10.

And what makes you think I can't do a ruin rush in day 10 by using current Walter? I guess I need not to say the video was even be posted before the Woby's rework.

[Civecilim]

9 hours ago, Dyzrespect said:

Woodie: Eat 3 Monster meat

"Balancing" in dst is extremely strange to me because whenever im tempted to say that a newly introduced mechanic is "too good" I remind myself of all of the currently existing "broken" things (like some of what you have named). Wendy can kill 50,000 spiders for free when she spawns in, Woodie can coast all the way to end game by chewing moose idols that are basically free and or spawning treeguards, wortox has unlimited health, wurt plays a cookie clicker minigame involving killing your own merms in order to make 100 merm houses which causes you to immediately win. These are all "broken" mechanics that are in the game right now (and have been there for a while), but dst is still pretty fun and playable. I *would* still describe new Walter and Wortox as "broken," but... I'm realizing that it doesn't matter? Am I making sense to anyone?

[JazzyGames]

They’re not pro players if they don’t make everything they do look easy!

Good points have been made here thus far, and I confess I am mostly interested in the more fundamental question: Is a pure ranged build in DST interesting and fun?

When you look at what a Fuelweaver fight can be with Walter I’d say the answer is that it definitely can be. Dodging with umbral dash while taking out unseen hands with secondary aiming, dispatching of woven shadows with AoE rounds…hands down one of the most fun FW fights I’ve experienced in a while.

The reason that fight works so well is that FW has numerous anti-range measures. But then you look at fights like Antlion, Klaus, Bearger, Moose, Clops, Armored Bearger, and Dfly, you come to realize that a sizeable chunk of enemies in DST have practically no anti-ranged measures and if slowed down with ichor rounds will basically sit there and wait to be killed. Not the most engaging gameplay experience for me.

Will nerfing Walter’s slowdown rounds fix this problem? Absolutely not. Maxwell will still have shadow prison, Winona will still have catapults, Wolfgang will still have marble suits and Wurt will still have merms. I don’t personally feel threatened by the presence of these methods but I do tend to avoid them for reasons of personal enjoyment, although I will always be a faithful Wurt stan!

So for these reasons I don’t think that nerfing slowing ammo needs to happen but at the same time I am glad that Walter is bringing sunlight to this glaring issue of boss vulnerability, and I think Klei will be much more mindful of adding anti-range counters to future bosses.

[Walrusst]

3 minutes ago, JazzyGames said:

So for these reasons I don’t think that nerfing slowing ammo needs to happen but at the same time I am glad that Walter is bringing sunlight to this glaring issue of boss vulnerability, and I think Klei will be much more mindful of adding anti-range counters to future bosses.

With my newbies group I noticed a lot more of them took hits at range from winters feast deerclops then standard deerclops.

The level of touch up needed for enemies to be able to engage with the wall of ranged weapons that came out post rifts, and walter now probably won't be as bad as it seems.

Bosses from the era of when tooth traps were relatively new obviously don't have that much in the way of options yet, but thats a yet not ever.

[JazzyGames]

Just now, Walrusst said:

Bosses from the era of when tooth traps were relatively new obviously don't have that much in the way of options yet, but thats a yet not ever.

Yup. We’re already seeing this with mutant bosses and reworked older bosses like CK and AG gaining more defenses against methods that traditionally made these bosses melt.