The many problems with Warly, and what his skill tree should improve

[Edible Coal]

3 hours ago, loopuleasa said:

all aboard the early warly anticipation train

 

imagine they cramp this into one flavor skill point, like a wendy ghost attack when teammate die

[FillerText]

I completely agree with everything, except for Volt Goat jelly becoming significantly worse in a multiplayer setting. Sure, a Wolfgang with x6 damage on a 6 player server won't save much time if you all went to kill the same boss, but it still saves a lot of time if you just have Wolfgang go for another unrelated boss. That being said, it not being worse in multiplayer doesn't mean I think Volt Goat jelly is that good. It takes so much effort to use it efficiently, that I think it would just better to fight bosses with an x1 damage multiplier in a lot of solo scenarios.

[Cheggf]

Man, I shouldn't have read this thread. I was having so much fun with Walter's cool new skill tree but ever since reading this thread I've just been thinking about how much more fun this would be, it's been distracting me from enjoying the new update.

[YouKnowWho142]

I really hope warly’s skill tree does him justice, he is such a cool character and has so much potential. I’d love to see his support aspect super expanded on especially in combat, I know most people play the game with singleplayer in mind but having more support stuff that can at worst be applied to himself to make him a proper support character would be extremely fascinating and unique

[ZeRoboButler]

20 hours ago, Cheggf said:

Man, I shouldn't have read this thread. I was having so much fun with Walter's cool new skill tree but ever since reading this thread I've just been thinking about how much more fun this would be, it's been distracting me from enjoying the new update.

starting to feel the same way actually, especially now that warly finally has some cosmetic options for his kitchenware and pouch, It stings a bit when I know just how junk the chef pouch is at keeping things from perishing. 

If even half of what was mentioned here gets incorporated I will be happy. I hope someone sees how much we actually care about this homesick chef and want the best for him. 

(so glad we got cast iron stuff, reminds me of my grandma and her kitchen)

[Cheggf]

36 minutes ago, ZeRoboButler said:

starting to feel the same way actually, especially now that warly finally has some cosmetic options for his kitchenware and pouch, It stings a bit when I know just how junk the chef pouch is at keeping things from perishing. 

If even half of what was mentioned here gets incorporated I will be happy. I hope someone sees how much we actually care about this homesick chef and want the best for him. 

(so glad we got cast iron stuff, reminds me of my grandma and her kitchen)

The chef pouch is such a fun idea for an item and it fits Warly perfectly, but unfortunately Warly was implemented during the time where Klei didn't want character items to be unique to them and also didn't want character items to be too powerful for the entire team, so they nerfed it from SW into being really bad (Slots: 8 to 6. Preservation: +100% to +33%.) so that you don't see entire servers running around with chef pouches. Hopefully now that there's a bunch of chef pouch skins they'll do something about the item. I don't really care whether it's only useful early on but it is useful early on, or it's only useful for Warly, or whatever it is. I just want it to be useful in some way. 

[_mylilsunshine_]

2 hours ago, Cheggf said:

The chef pouch is such a fun idea for an item and it fits Warly perfectly, but unfortunately Warly was implemented during the time where Klei didn't want character items to be unique to them and also didn't want character items to be too powerful for the entire team, so they nerfed it from SW into being really bad (Slots: 8 to 6. Preservation: +100% to +33%.) so that you don't see entire servers running around with chef pouches. Hopefully now that there's a bunch of chef pouch skins they'll do something about the item. I don't really care whether it's only useful early on but it is useful early on, or it's only useful for Warly, or whatever it is. I just want it to be useful in some way. 

they also buffed the insulated pack from 6 to 8 slots, maybe so that an early game item won't compete with a boss-drop item but yeah i get what you mean

i loved using the insulated pack as walter actually. he has a small hunger pool of 110 so most big dishes are wasted on him, meatball seems perfect but spoils too quickly. i used the insulatedpack for that. after the skill tree, big woby is a lot easier to maintain and faster too so now i just use a piggypack. klei definitely cooked with the insulated pack and then left warly to spoil

Quote

In the July  25, 2019 patch, the amount of inventory slots was increased from 6 to 8, to compete with Warly's Chef Pouch. In the May 28, 2020 patch, the Gears and Electrical Doodad cost was reduced to 1.

 

[Cheggf]

59 minutes ago, _mylilsunshine_ said:

they also buffed the insulated pack from 6 to 8 slots, maybe so that an early game item won't compete with a boss-drop item but yeah i get what you mean

i loved using the insulated pack as walter actually. he has a small hunger pool of 110 so most big dishes are wasted on him, meatball seems perfect but spoils too quickly. i used the insulatedpack for that. after the skill tree, big woby is a lot easier to maintain and faster too so now i just use a piggypack. klei definitely cooked with the insulated pack and then left warly to spoil

 

Insulated pack is the best backpack for everyone, I think. Even pitted up against the krampus sack. Doubling the duration of perishables means your hambat does more damage, you can bring twice as much food with you (or unbundle twice as much), your health/sanity restoring food lasts twice as long, and some extra interactions like animals and moongleams last twice as long in it (although moongleams were changed to last a really long time so that doesn't really matter any more).

3 hours ago, Cheggf said:

The chef pouch is such a fun idea for an item and it fits Warly perfectly, but unfortunately Warly was implemented during the time where Klei didn't want character items to be unique to them and also didn't want character items to be too powerful for the entire team, so they nerfed it from SW into being really bad (Slots: 8 to 6. Preservation: +100% to +33%.) so that you don't see entire servers running around with chef pouches. Hopefully now that there's a bunch of chef pouch skins they'll do something about the item. I don't really care whether it's only useful early on but it is useful early on, or it's only useful for Warly, or whatever it is. I just want it to be useful in some way. 

Maybe they could make it 8 slots and if salt box items are inside of it they last twice as long but nothing else in it lasts twice as long. That would be helpful as everyone, but especially Warly going for a "cook different things as I go along" style, while staying worse than the insulated pack since it only affects salt boxable items. Or maybe make it like the salt box where nothing except salt box items can go in it, but also let Warly put his own stuff like portable crock pots in it. Maybe people would bring the portable grinding mill & seasoning station if they're taking up slots that would otherwise only be able to hold ingredients. 

[flamboyant wolf]

Agreed.

I think another thing that could help make Warly's gameplay feel better would be having more unique dishes that use specific ingredients from the world rather than crops from the farm.

Some unique dish using lichen and perhaps bananas, something with sea stuff like figs? something with leafy meat, just in case you come across some? It would also be great if the surface mainland had more ingredients you don't have to farm for, for example, this:

On 3/1/2025 at 1:39 PM, ShadowDuelist said:

It would make the world feel more “alive” and it would help warly indirectly if different plants grew in the usual old biomes naturally 

would be great.

I feel like I've had the most fun playing Warly, when I was making use of what I can find around me, instead of just cooking it all in advance. I think having more "local cuisine" would both give incentive to explore more and give some more opportunities to use your kit throughout the game.

[_mylilsunshine_]

2 hours ago, flamboyant wolf said:

I think another thing that could help make Warly's gameplay feel better would be having more unique dishes that use specific ingredients from the world rather than crops from the farm.

Some unique dish using lichen and perhaps bananas, something with sea stuff like figs? something with leafy meat, just in case you come across some? It would also be great if the surface mainland had more ingredients you don't have to farm for.

I feel like I've had the most fun playing Warly, when I was making use of what I can find around me, instead of just cooking it all in advance. I think having more "local cuisine" would both give incentive to explore more and give some more opportunities to use your kit throughout the game.

On 3/1/2025 at 5:39 PM, ShadowDuelist said:

I’d add that the fact that most early game accesible biomes only have berries and carrots, and this is a dated mechanic, inherited from the original don’t starve.

It would make the world feel more “alive” and it would help warly indirectly if different plants grew in the usual old biomes naturally (EG: you will find naturally growing peppers near DF, the pigmen’s farms will have assorted vegetables, you can find onions and potatoes near spider forests, etc)

y'know what? maybe dst is due for an environmental update, calls it botanical vegetation foliage mega update whatever you want. i wish for the constant to be lush and bountiful and vibrant, even if it means some plants are dangerous and try to kill me

[Cheggf]

10 minutes ago, _mylilsunshine_ said:

y'know what? maybe dst is due for an environmental update, calls it botanical vegetation foliage mega update whatever you want. i wish for the constant to be lush and bountiful and vibrant, even if it means some plants are dangerous and try to kill me

Wormwood's Hamlet perk where plants don't attack him could be a lot more helpful with some more dangerous plants.

[nicolas103]

Been quite some time since i actually last played Warly, but honestly i didnt have too bad of a time as him, but there are some times i felt it was redundant to even really be the character as almost all postives are so minor compared to any other characters natural benefits.

I ended up playing this character more so as a farmer rather than my normal way of just killing anything that moved, but i cant really tell if i spent more time growing crops than just killing and eating normally. So idk if i spent too much time to prep my dishes. Definitily didnt feel that way i guess.

 

Regardless, i noticed more immediatly in the caves how much quicker i could be since i didnt need to make a Lantern, and just went straight to ruins rushing like normal only having ate 2 Glow Berry Mousse. Probably my all time favorite dish so far. Outside of caving however i never touched it, but still felt quite good at that time.

 

After some day specific events i went to setup a Auto Volt Goat Farm, along with my usual Mactusks, and had no problem producing Volt Goat Jelly for myself which admittidly i barely used anyways. Only having used some for each boss onwards, and i dont think during a single rain either.

I didnt feel here either id sunk too much time into this dish. However id felt it was mandatory i had set it up quicker than i normally would care too.

 

I actually wanted to try the waterproof dish as it sounds great on paper, but i dont even wear armor anyway so i just didnt care to even use it when i might as well just wear the eyebrella.

 

Honey Crystals imo felt amazing and are by far my favorite spice. Especially in other Late Game Worlds.

So far this is probably all of my greater experiences with the character which is nothing to write home about, and tbh i could have gotten roughly same experiences with other characters.

 

Now for the biggest negative id felt drastically outway any positives:

I do not enjoy the Hunger Memory Mechanic, not in Solo DS, or DST. Just doesnt feel great to play with long term  and continuosly has to be managed, but at least Its easily bypassed by just spamming one dish then waiting until you can spam it again. On top of that him having lost the +25% bonus for his 1st dish still just didnt sit right with me when they transfered an already weak character over to Dst. I still feel to this day that a few random cravings which provided a big increase in stats would have been better either in general, or in addition to this mechanic.

 

Some other Minor Notes:

Spicy Volt Goat Jelly: I cant tell if its just me, but i dont care all that much for damage increases. Sure they help, and save time, but at the same time at a higher level of skill its not saving you really much of anything outside of time. Which i dont want saved, im already here to waste my time on the game, lol.

 

Chef Pouch: I actually didnt know its only 25% i thought something was off with it for sure, but i never look at the wiki or really search things up about the game so i genually thought it was an icebox.

 

Something i do wanna suggest for the character is a backpack instead of the portable crap that can just cook, and spice on the go instead of placing, cooking, picking up. Some dishes take long even with the bonus to Crockpot speed, and placing this portable pot somewhere and coming back just isnt "Portable" enough imo.

 

Other then that this character works so much better when you dont use him, and instead just swap to him when you need his bonuses, which im sure isnt new to anybody.

Theres so much i cant even comment on as my playstyle in general makes it near impossible to make use of them. Ex: Grim Gallette, Garlic Spice, Salt Spice.

[Cheggf]

Since so much of Warly's kit involves farming (and almost certainly will even if they add a bunch of new non-farming stuff), I think another thing that would be cool is if honey crystals doubled the hoe animation speed in addition to doubling axe & pickaxe strength. The hoe is a big time sink so it'd be great if he could cut it down somewhat, and I feel like it fits the honey crystal effect. Wormwood skips all of it for free so I think Warly spending resources on hoes, honey crystals, and the stations in order to skip part of it would be fine. 

[Edible Coal]

theres another really cool feature i want warly to have, which is he can cook with less than 4 ingredients (2 is minimum) and the rest will automatically be filled as edible filler.

this helps warlys to use much less filler and helps with early game a lot 

[Anis5240]

I think it would be cool if Warly can actually cook his food on the go, like the food cooks in the crockpot in his inventory. The UI can be like the enlightened crown and after the food was done, he'd have a quote and open the crockpot like other portable containers.

[Edible Coal]

34 minutes ago, Anis5240 said:

I think it would be cool if Warly can actually cook his food on the go, like the food cooks in the crockpot in his inventory. The UI can be like the enlightened crown and after the food was done, he'd have a quote and open the crockpot like other portable containers.

warly becomes a moving food truck

[Anis5240]

11 minutes ago, Edible Coal said:

warly becomes a moving food truck

so real, peak gaming

[Chewabacca]

Agreed with the original post, just wanted to add some other issues I have with Warly:

OP mentioned Warly’s lack of control over accessing his upsides because of RNG with farm crops and loot drops, but I would also argue that the lack of ways for Warly to figure out his unique dish upsides in-game is a big stumbling block. Without the internet, I very much doubt that anyone would ever know about volt goat jelly, for example, because there’s really nothing in the rest of Warly’s stuff to let anyone know that they won’t be entirely wasting this rare horn if they stick it in there. I don’t believe that the game should hand out a tutorial, I like the emphasis DST puts on trial and error, but this has nothing to do with experimentation. This is a whole feature that people, including Klei, think about when they think about Warly’s power level that nobody is going to know about if they don’t look Warly up online, because the rest of his kit is barely focused on his unique dishes.

Which brings me to his next problem: his listed in-game upside is his seasonings, and that’s it. You could sprinkle them over any dish and get the same results. There’s nothing that really makes him a better cook, besides his crockpot being portable and slightly faster than standard. I say this not to go “oh you guys are misinterpreting his character, the special dishes are just for flavor” or whatever, but because I think it’s stupid that the cooking character has barely any upside over anyone else when it comes to cooking.

In combination with some of the other solutions people have mentioned (higher rare drop chance to allow room for experimentation in the first place, more dishes using non-farm ingredients), I think giving him a skill that would let him use usually-inedible items in the crockpot as long as they’re mob drops would be a good step: it gives Warly a perk actually related to cooking and it sets a precedent of him being able to throw a wide range of things in his crockpot and come out with a meal. This doesn’t have to mean a bunch of new recipes (although if the suggestion to actually reward him for non-repeat dishes were implemented, even miserable dishes based on dirt-cheap inedible ingredients could have some use). It could just be giving him a wider range of things to use as filler.

[WilsonHiggs]

31 minutes ago, Chewabacca said:

Without the internet, I very much doubt that anyone would ever know about volt goat jelly, for example

+1000

[Edible Coal]

11 hours ago, Chewabacca said:

 

In combination with some of the other solutions people have mentioned (higher rare drop chance to allow room for experimentation in the first place, more dishes using non-farm ingredients), I think giving him a skill that would let him use usually-inedible items in the crockpot as long as they’re mob drops would be a good step: it gives Warly a perk actually related to cooking and it sets a precedent of him being able to throw a wide range of things in his crockpot and come out with a meal. This doesn’t have to mean a bunch of new recipes (although if the suggestion to actually reward him for non-repeat dishes were implemented, even miserable dishes based on dirt-cheap inedible ingredients could have some use). It could just be giving him a wider range of things to use as filler.

true, if you think of wormwood as a good farmer, he does have a lot of perks that benefit farming, like rats that pick up seeds for you and your harvest, the ability to know seed type from random seeds, able to directly plant seed super fast without hoeing or planting animation, blooming makes him tend to plant automatically , all crop grown by him last twice as long ( the list goes on)

while warly only has a 20% crock pot cooking speed which isnt even impactful consider you usually have like 6-8 pot cooking at the same time,plus cooking food isnt hard, but collecting the material for it is.... 

[Guille6785]

I just had another idea that could make Warly's buffs better in a team: What if he could split his buff dishes into smaller portions that provide the same buff but for a shorter period of time? In a multiplayer environment it doesn't make a lot of sense to use 3 volt goat horns just for the boss to die in 30 seconds, with the majority of the buff remaining, but if you could, say, make 3 mini-volt goat jellies that last 1 minute each with a single volt goat horn then it would make much more sense to do that while encouraging Warly players to share their buffs more often.

It'd also allow Warly to do stuff like this with followers without wasting 70 billion volt goat horns:

 

[GenomeSquirrel]

1 minute ago, Guille6785 said:

I just had another idea that could make Warly's buffs better in a team: What if he could split his buff dishes into smaller portions that provide the same buff but for a shorter period of time? In a multiplayer environment it doesn't make a lot of sense to use 3 volt goat horns just for the boss to die in 30 seconds, with the majority of the buff remaining, but if you could, say, make 3 mini-volt goat jellies that last 1 minute each with a single volt goat horn then it would make much more sense to do that while encouraging Warly players to share their buffs more often.

It'd also allow Warly to do stuff like this with followers without wasting 70 billion volt goat horns:

 

I was thinking of just letting him multiply crockpot dishes at creation, his existing downside can be increased if hunger is deemed too easy to eliminate. 

 

 

[Guille6785]

4 minutes ago, GenomeSquirrel said:

I was thinking of just letting him multiply crockpot dishes at creation, his existing downside can be increased if hunger is deemed too easy to eliminate. 

 

 

I think giving Warly a periodical buff that multiplies how many of a crock pot dish he produces, maybe as a reward for not repeating dishes for an extended period of time, could be a way to do both things at once

[Cheggf]

1 hour ago, Guille6785 said:

I just had another idea that could make Warly's buffs better in a team: What if he could split his buff dishes into smaller portions that provide the same buff but for a shorter period of time? In a multiplayer environment it doesn't make a lot of sense to use 3 volt goat horns just for the boss to die in 30 seconds, with the majority of the buff remaining, but if you could, say, make 3 mini-volt goat jellies that last 1 minute each with a single volt goat horn then it would make much more sense to do that while encouraging Warly players to share their buffs more often.

It'd also allow Warly to do stuff like this with followers without wasting 70 billion volt goat horns:

 

That would be fun. He could also have a skill point in his skill point tree which increases the duration of buffs when you feed them to followers to make him better at this, since a player with a damage buff is going to be dealing so much more DPS than a follower with a damage buff.

[HowlVoid]

1 hour ago, Guille6785 said:

I just had another idea that could make Warly's buffs better in a team: What if he could split his buff dishes into smaller portions that provide the same buff but for a shorter period of time? In a multiplayer environment it doesn't make a lot of sense to use 3 volt goat horns just for the boss to die in 30 seconds, with the majority of the buff remaining, but if you could, say, make 3 mini-volt goat jellies that last 1 minute each with a single volt goat horn then it would make much more sense to do that while encouraging Warly players to share their buffs more often.

It'd also allow Warly to do stuff like this with followers without wasting 70 billion volt goat horns:

 

Just add a skill called pseudo food something something clever and when a person is next to a buffed warly they get a portion of the buff too.