The Problem with Lunar abby And Shadow abby Accessablity

[DVGMedia]

These two affinities really are at odds with anything that goes with fun game design.

Mainly because they both fall under the aspect of tedium. 
To get lunar you need to take abby to a moon dial on a full moon.  and can only change her back when the moon is waning.

I don't get kleis obsession with tying things to structures into this game but you know the ritual is fine for the first time you want to get gestalt in a world.
So for my suggestions
Instead of just changing abby to gestalt form you Doing this ritutal lets you upgrade abbys flower Upgrading abbys flower makes it so that you can swap between gestalt and default abby once a day cooldown appies to all abby flowers so you cant just swap flowers quickly.
When you do swap forms you cant change back until the day is over.  This provides slightly more freedom instead of having to be tied to the moon dial on specific times to be able to change abby back.  I feel like this works better especially since they have changed how strong gabby was through the beta updates.

As for shadow abby.  since hers is open at the start without needing to do any ritual except sacrifice. The main thing to change for this is that sacrifices now go into abbys flower and get stored. This will store 480 seconds of sacrifices and wendy can just activate it whenever she needs. to.
So you will still need to grind for sacrifices.  But you are more free to use them as you please without needing to store hundreds of insects in your inventory.

This is kind of similar to how woodies totems worked.  Previously woodies totems would rot  so you could never really make a bunch of them.
But then klei changed it so that they don't rot.

[Cheggf]

I'm going to say what I said when you proposed this on the Discord server. You do not transform Abigail the way that you do because of "the sake of an imaginary balance", you transform Abigail the way that you do because this is one of the very few instances of Klei actually incorporating new things to the game in a fitting way that is thematic and interesting, instead of just lazily giving up, saying "Screw it!", and throwing everything onto a mod wheel. The most interesting part of Wendy's entire skill tree, by far, is that she can now transform Abigail if she does a cute little lore interaction, something that would not have felt out of place had it been added to the game a decade ago. To remove this in its entirety and just replace it with the mod wheel that she already is so cluttered down by would be to remove the best part of the skill tree.

There could be some changes about the transformations, Shadow's is really short for instance. But you should not just mindlessly be able to press a button on an ugly menu to freely swap back and forth whenever you want. The way she transforms right now is perfect.

[DVGMedia]

14 minutes ago, Cheggf said:

I'm going to say what I said when you proposed this on the Discord server. You do not transform Abigail the way that you do because of "the sake of an imaginary balance", you transform Abigail the way that you do because this is one of the very few instances of Klei actually incorporating new things to the game in a fitting way that is thematic and interesting, instead of just lazily giving up, saying "Screw it!", and throwing everything onto a mod wheel. The most interesting part of Wendy's entire skill tree, by far, is that she can now transform Abigail if she does a cute little lore interaction, something that would not have felt out of place had it been added to the game a decade ago. To remove this in its entirety and just replace it with the mod wheel that she already is so cluttered down by would be to remove the best part of the skill tree.

There could be some changes about the transformations, Shadow's is really short for instance. But you should not just mindlessly be able to press a button on an ugly menu to freely swap back and forth whenever you want. The way she transforms right now is perfect.

How about no?
there are ways to do things thematically and have them not be bad to interact with gameplay wise.

And if you are trying to get a person to play a character Which is what people say skill trees are about.
This kind of ruins the actual game play aspect of it.

The thematics are still there. you still need to do the thematic thing to access it. However  Everyone would be so much happier playing the game with what i suggested instead of what is currently implmemented.

I know some people like the aspect of realism in their games Where there are more steps added to things in order to make it more real. To some yeah it may be fun if that is what the game is built upon. But this game isn't built that way,. there is logic to the reason why something happens.
But an average person will not miss needing to do the ritutal every time they want to swap abby.
Or need to maintain their insect collection to use their powers.
 

[Cheggf]

11 minutes ago, DVGMedia said:

there are ways to do things thematically

And "press right click on the flower" is not one of them.

[Gashzer]

Slightly buffing distilled vengeance from 20>25 damage and increasing shield duration by additional 0.5sec is what's needed to bring gestalt abigail up to power.

Regular/shadow abigail is in a good spot atm.

[Swiyss]

8 hours ago, DVGMedia said:

Instead of just changing abby to gestalt form you Doing this ritutal lets you upgrade abbys flower Upgrading abbys flower makes it so that you can swap between gestalt and default abby once a day cooldown appies to all abby flowers so you cant just swap flowers quickly.

I like this idea, but it should cost some morning glory then.

8 hours ago, DVGMedia said:

As for shadow abby.  since hers is open at the start without needing to do any ritual except sacrifice. The main thing to change for this is that sacrifices now go into abbys flower and get stored. This will store 480 seconds of sacrifices and wendy can just activate it whenever she needs. to.
So you will still need to grind for sacrifices.  But you are more free to use them as you please without needing to store hundreds of insects in your inventory.

This is also a very great suggestion, it should also cost morning glory though imo.

7 hours ago, Cheggf said:

And "press right click on the flower" is not one of them.

I disagree with you, I think there's no real reason not to just make this interaction easier to access later on after you already used it once at the moon dial. You still have to craft one too let's not forget about that. There's already the fact that we have to maintain potions, morning glory supply, lunar tree blossom in the sisturn, butterfly wings or moon moth ones as well. Would be great to have 1 less thing to maintain, having to come back to base, wait 2 days for the moon cycle, then coming back there, fighting bee queen which requires some AoE, then going back to base again, waiting 5 to 10 days, mutating her again, then fighting the other mobs and bosses that respawned again because not all of them respawn at the same time, then having to be forced to wait for ruins cause you have to unmutate again is not practical. Then after dealing with monkeys and clockworks to farm fuel, you have to now kill ag, fuelweaver, werepig and toad which all would be better having gabby, but you can't see the moon cycle from downstairs so you gotta be locked behind the moon cycle again, and sometimes this cycle won't match seasons, and you're gonna wanna be fighting fuelweaver or toad with volt goat jelly maybe, so it has to be spring, and it has to be the right moon, and you gotta have enough time to do all of this, while also farming meese/geese, and say you don't have chaud froid, so you just wanna do it in summer or autumn, you might be wasting a bunch of time already waiting for the moon, doing base stuff, killing bearger and antlion or even fishing in the oasis for that rare trinket or winter decoration you want and also gathering resources. 

In practice, I guarantee you that at least 30 days were lost in efficiency in my world from this.

[DVGMedia]

12 hours ago, Cheggf said:

And "press right click on the flower" is not one of them.

What problems would arise from this though?  I can see problems arising from the method you enjoy.  I find it is always better to add in ease of access. To a character it's the best way to make a character better without needing to adjust physical numbers 

[YouKnowWho142]

Abi just shouldn't rely on insects for sacrifices at all. Just make larger animals like rabbits, birds, and spiders contribute to significantly longer sacrifice times (like a full minute each, at the very least). As for Gestalt Abigail, I didn't like her until I did a run with her, as long as you're transforming her accordingly to your plans over the next 10 days I see no issue with how she is now.

[Walrusst]

I mentioned an idea of despair and inspiration waters you can use to manipulate abby's state in a more predictable way in another thread, I just had the ill advised idea of blending the idea with a walter idea that people spotted flaws in and the wendy parts didn't get discussed at all because I was a fool and matched the idea with a much more controversial concept.
Even tried to garnish it with a special side effect like the hard worker characters being willing to try drinking these and having personalized unique reactions to wendies ghostly sparkling waters.

[Cheggf]

3 hours ago, DVGMedia said:

What problems would arise from this though?  I can see problems arising from the method you enjoy.  I find it is always better to add in ease of access. To a character it's the best way to make a character better without needing to adjust physical numbers 

I already said in both my first comment and the Discord server. 

[DVGMedia]

35 minutes ago, Cheggf said:

I already said in both my first comment and the Discord server. 

So only because its thematic nothing should be done to grant more ease of access?
Everyone would benefit from this change though. If you can tell me that there won't be benefits I would like to hear it. It would make the gameplay of a wendy main better to play. while not changing anything stats wise just the means to access her powers? So why not do it? many characters have a way to garuntee their powerups and swaps in a much easier way  so why is it that wendy is the only one with tedium.

[hyoton123]

18 hours ago, YouKnowWho142 said:

As for Gestalt Abigail, I didn't like her until I did a run with her, as long as you're transforming her accordingly to your plans over the next 10 days I see no issue with how she is now.

Yeah, she requires the barest modicum of thinking ahead, and thats in the worst case where you transform on the moon change and instantly ragret. (or being careful about moonstorms, but if the wendy has lunar sister 3, they should understand the consequences of infinite full moon).

 

 

[JaxckLl]

On 3/23/2025 at 11:33 PM, Cheggf said:

I'm going to say what I said when you proposed this on the Discord server. You do not transform Abigail the way that you do because of "the sake of an imaginary balance", you transform Abigail the way that you do because this is one of the very few instances of Klei actually incorporating new things to the game in a fitting way that is thematic and interesting, instead of just lazily giving up, saying "Screw it!", and throwing everything onto a mod wheel. The most interesting part of Wendy's entire skill tree, by far, is that she can now transform Abigail if she does a cute little lore interaction, something that would not have felt out of place had it been added to the game a decade ago. To remove this in its entirety and just replace it with the mod wheel that she already is so cluttered down by would be to remove the best part of the skill tree.

There could be some changes about the transformations, Shadow's is really short for instance. But you should not just mindlessly be able to press a button on an ugly menu to freely swap back and forth whenever you want. The way she transforms right now is perfect.

We don't always agree, but I think you put it really well here Cheggf.

[DVGMedia]

50 minutes ago, JaxckLl said:

We don't always agree, but I think you put it really well here Cheggf.

If that's the case we should follow then we should revert woodies totems back to being able to rot it was done thematically because it was made from food  also the mourning glory hat should not rot since it's made from items that don't rot 

 

 My main question is what would be the problem if we give these more more ease of access 

[JaxckLl]

Being able to activate the Moonstone Idol only once every 20 days is a problem, but that's not a problem with Wendy, that's a problem with the Moonstone Idol. What I would prefer if we can activate it at half moon or greater. This would give Abby access every 10 days, with a 10 day window and it would let characters other than Wilson rush for a Moon Opal. I'd also give more space for the New Moon activation of the Shadow Pieces and give Maxwell & Wicker  the ability to force a New Moon by using a new Wicker book. Indeed being able to force or extend a Rift would be a great late game upgrade for Wicker's Lunar book, and the aformentioned New Moon book.

Personally I really like the rituals & events in the game and I wish they were more accessible. Another direction to go would be to give more functionality to the Astral Detector. It's super strange to have an entire tool that requires a multi-stage, time dependent questline and yet has exactly two mandatory and one optional use. It doesn't even provide any resources directly! One of the more annoying parts of the Lunar Island is how the trees are planted from butterflies, but the butterflies only generate when you chop down the tree. The flow of chopping down trees on the Lunar Island is thus super awkward. This wouldn't be a problem if all they provided was Logs, there are other better sources for that, but they provide Lunar Blossoms which are unique. What I would like would be the ability to collect Lunar Blossoms from Lune Trees without chopping them down and way to generate butterflies without having to chop the trees down. This is a perfect function for the Astral Detector. Let us install it on one of the Fissures and have it generate butterflies & blossoms during moonfull nights based on the number of nearby Lune Trees. This would give it a cool function as a source of an otherwise awkward collection of renewable resources, while also encouraging players to build a unique type of build. The same function could be extended as a way to get Lunar Abigail out of cycle. Have enough Lune Trees around a Astral Fissure and Abi can concentrate her power on any day.

[DVGMedia]

5 hours ago, JaxckLl said:

encouraging players to build a unique type of build

its pretty bad to tie characters to a structure they have to manage it's why often times people circumvent them. I say there is no problem to making things easier once the player does the ritual once. Imagine if shadow pieces worked like that. Where every time you had to do the event you have to go and search for the pieces it would just not be fun 

[Arepantera]

I feel like we can get a reasonable compromise between "this mechanic must remain thematic and/or lore friendly" and "this mechanic should be less annoying to interact with"

An idea that comes to my head would be:

The moon dial transforms your abby for free depending on the moon's state. But you can corrupt the dial by offering shadow or lunar aligned items to get a fixed result for some time. For example, offering moon glass to the dial would give lunar corruption to the dial, making it so it transforms your abby into a gestalt regardless of the moon's state. Offering nightmare fuel would corrupt dial on the opposite direction and it makes abby go back to normal regardless of the moon's state.

[YouKnowWho142]

17 hours ago, DVGMedia said:

its pretty bad to tie characters to a structure they have to manage 

Wolfgang gym, Wickerbottom bookshelf, any of Winona's gadgets, Wurt's merm king

Having to go to a moondial maybe once every 10 days isn't nearly as bad as you make it out to be, if you switch to gestalt Abigail you are well aware what you are trading away and it isn't very hard to switch back, especially if you do it on a full moon where you can immediately switch her back the next day. You keep repeating the word tedium but in at least Gestalt Abi's case I have zero idea where that's coming from, I used her just fine

[DVGMedia]

3 hours ago, YouKnowWho142 said:

Wolfgang gym, Wickerbottom bookshelf, any of Winona's gadgets, Wurt's merm king

Having to go to a moondial maybe once every 10 days isn't nearly as bad as you make it out to be, if you switch to gestalt Abigail you are well aware what you are trading away and it isn't very hard to switch back, especially if you do it on a full moon where you can immediately switch her back the next day. You keep repeating the word tedium but in at least Gestalt Abi's case I have zero idea where that's coming from, I used her just fine

each one of these though play differently with how the characters work though.

No one uses wolfgangs gym as its basically replaced by the gem bell since more often than not you need mightiness on the go.

Winona does have the option to move the structures.

Wicker bottom is actually fitting Because her bookcase is purely a recharge station. 

Similar with merm king Merm king is just a buff station that needs to be refueled every so often.

For some reason wendy  a character that is more in the concept of play as wolfgang where she needs to be more mobile.  Are strattled with options that are purely stationary.
Moon dial and sisturn.
The sisturn can work kind of like wurts merm king where it just needs to be replaced every so often  Which i think its fine. However she gets a downside for using it the wrong way with her perks.
And then moon dial is purely based on the phase of the moon (Which can be permanent thanks to moon storms/ haphazard wickerbottoms) and doesn't work underground.
The fact that woodie has to spend a skill point just so that he is not destroyed by these two it should teach us something about how setting this up is a problem

3 hours ago, YouKnowWho142 said:

 You keep repeating the word tedium but in at least Gestalt Abi's case I have zero idea where that's coming from, I used her just fine

most of wendy is like that especially with time and such. wendy was always tied by some sort of restrictions. Time of day  The need to revive abby with a sacrifice. And most wendy players found a way around this by either keeping something to kill or planning her actions based on when it would be the most advantages.  Over time wendy has been given more ease of access to use her powers. Abby no longer needed a sacrifice but she started off weaker and needed time to lvl up(mitigated by sisturn).  No longer needed to wait for night to have abby be at her max power (potions). Yet now she is just strattled with more tasks to do without getting to just enjoy her powers. 
Most characters just need to do something once in order to maximize their powers. Getting a craft or a specific item. Yet wendy has to continue in pain where she must be stuck with timed methods to even access hers.
Like she can still keep the thematic sense of converting. for the first time. however its not needed more beyond that.

[YouKnowWho142]

This all feels incredibly wrong.

1 hour ago, DVGMedia said:

No one uses wolfgangs gym as its basically replaced by the gem bell since more often than not you need mightiness on the go.

Winona does have the option to move the structures.

Wicker bottom is actually fitting Because her bookcase is purely a recharge station. 

Similar with merm king Merm king is just a buff station that needs to be refueled every so often.

I dont get why you are ignoring my point here. You cannot disregard the gym, and although it is the weakest of my points the gym is free and is encouraged in the skill tree. Winona has the option to move her contraptions, sure, but if you want to benefit from the spotlight and especially the teleporter you need to maintain those generators or lose the benefits, the only way to make it infinite being to deconstruct one of the strongest items in the game for the privilege of 5 infinite generators at best. There's also the night light being used for the revive point in the Charlie line which is an otherwise useless structure that youre forced to make. Wickerbottom still needs to return to the bookshelf every now and then to refresh, which shouldn't be any different from a sisturn, and Merm king is way more than just a "buff station". Merm king activates most of what makes Wurt special, and losing access to merm guards is a huge deal meaning you're forced to babysit merm king most of the time.

1 hour ago, DVGMedia said:

For some reason wendy  a character that is more in the concept of play as wolfgang where she needs to be more mobile.  Are strattled with options that are purely stationary.
Moon dial and sisturn.
The sisturn can work kind of like wurts merm king where it just needs to be replaced every so often  Which i think its fine. However she gets a downside for using it the wrong way with her perks.
And then moon dial is purely based on the phase of the moon (Which can be permanent thanks to moon storms/ haphazard wickerbottoms) and doesn't work underground.
The fact that woodie has to spend a skill point just so that he is not destroyed by these two it should teach us something about how setting this up is a problem

I don't get how you can say Wendy is supposed to be more mobile if sisturn has always been a part of her basekit. If you can't visit your base once within ten days to switch to whatever form you want because you're "mobile", then it sounds more like gestalt Abi doesn't fit with your playstyle, which isn't a flaw against her by itself. In the moon storm you have no reason to be swapping unless you really like permanent moon storms since Gestalt Abigail performs better against cc anyways, and if a Wickerbottom is setting up tons of full moons that just makes it easier for you since the day after a full moon will always be waning aka normal abi so you just have to wait one day (which is what you propose anyways).

1 hour ago, DVGMedia said:

most of wendy is like that especially with time and such. wendy was always tied by some sort of restrictions. Time of day  The need to revive abby with a sacrifice. And most wendy players found a way around this by either keeping something to kill or planning her actions based on when it would be the most advantages.  Over time wendy has been given more ease of access to use her powers. Abby no longer needed a sacrifice but she started off weaker and needed time to lvl up(mitigated by sisturn).  No longer needed to wait for night to have abby be at her max power (potions). Yet now she is just strattled with more tasks to do without getting to just enjoy her powers. 
Most characters just need to do something once in order to maximize their powers. Getting a craft or a specific item. Yet wendy has to continue in pain where she must be stuck with timed methods to even access hers.
Like she can still keep the thematic sense of converting. for the first time. however its not needed more beyond that.

And i especially don't get this part. Abigail's powers are not permanent because she isn't a character, Wendy is. Wendy progresses like a normal character separately of Abigail, and giving Abigail permanent powerups is completely unnecessary for that reason, hence why she got elixirs instead of upgrades. Other characters only need to do it once because that's a core part of their progression, Wendy is the one who is supposed to do progression, not Abigail. Even for a character like Maxwell, his shadow puppets do not have actual progression, they just copy Maxwell's current progression which as clones make sense. Abigail is specifically designed not to be independent also, and making it so that she has full access over her stronger powers goes against that idea. Wendy isn't forced to "do more tasks", she literally makes elixirs up to 4x more efficiently. Lune trees take a minute or two to chop and last significantly longer, basically giving Abi double hp against bosses for free (no, her reduced healing is not a real downside in 95% of situations, just recall her when she's low, the downside goes away and she heals much more safely. Her passive healing is never slowed down and if you need to use spectral cure all against trash mobs then you're already doing something wrong). The only place I agree with you on is shadow Abigail, I think killing insects as sacrifices is lame and it's the same reason I'm not a big fan of Wortox, but a shadow Abigail buff should be through more interesting and fulfilling sacrifices, not a "stored timer".

Every time I see your posts, it feels more like you just don't enjoy playing Wendy, or you're playing her in a way that isn't fun for you. I did a complete Wendy run as a response to all the complaints I've seen and not only were most of those complaints completely null in practice but I found that a lot of the claims about Wendy's skill tree were outright not true. I had the most fun playing her than I ever had with experimenting with elixirs, swapping between her forms, and using team spirit in combat all feeling great to use. Wendy even at her basekit has always had what you called "tedium", but it seems like a lot of people took issue with the skill tree specifically because nobody ever experimented with elixirs before the skill tree and now that they're efficient and easy to craft you are instead encouraged to. I've barely had to grind with the new Wendy and by the end of my Wendy run I had 20 of each elixir, 2 stacks of mourning glories just passively by doing the occasional pipspook (which I never really went out of my way for), and the blessed sisturn active at basically all times, switching between Abigail forms based on whatever I wanted to do over a span of time. I don't understand why you have this idea that Abigail should be granted maximum strength at all times or that it's hard to get there, but Abigail is ultimately not a character and shouldn't be compared to other characters.

[hyoton123]

20 minutes ago, YouKnowWho142 said:

If you can't visit your base once within ten days to switch to whatever form you want because you're "mobile", then it sounds more like gestalt Abi doesn't fit with your playstyle, which isn't a flaw against her by itself.

And like, the player can make multiple moon dials around the world. I assume hammer also returns the gem, so it’s not expensive at all. It’s like saying I cant use crockpots, I’m mobile.

 

RE: progression- EXACTLY. And it isnt like abigail becomes completely useless in one form or the other. At worst it’s still doubling the number of targets out there.

 

I’ve been casually playing wendy, it’s great. Very comfy, low resource consumption, high resource generation, good reward on interacting and manipulating abby and other tools from the skilltree. I dont get the problems.

[DVGMedia]

1 hour ago, YouKnowWho142 said:

Every time I see your posts, it feels more like you just don't enjoy playing Wendy, or you're playing her in a way that isn't fun for you.

I enjoy her I watch the things however i just feel like theres no real use to having affinities before rifts.

Just because you can mitigate the damage of something personally doesn't  make the original any better.
.
My suggestions will still make her better to play even though you are happy with what you are dealing with.  You still would be better off with my suggestions

Wendy is still making progression to boost abby what is so hard about that? Why is this strictly a wendy problem?

1 hour ago, YouKnowWho142 said:

Wendy isn't forced to "do more tasks"

she really is though compared to many other characters

1 hour ago, YouKnowWho142 said:

Wickerbottom still needs to return to the bookshelf every now and then to refresh, which shouldn't be any different from a sisturn, and Merm king is way more than just a "buff station". Merm king activates most of what makes Wurt special, and losing access to merm guards is a huge deal meaning you're forced to babysit merm king most of the time.

I don't get how you can say Wendy is supposed to be more mobile if sisturn has always been a part of her basekit

alot of these are set it and forget it. 
Default sisturn is a set it and forget it type of structure. you go place petals and you have insurance for the next 6~ days with her skill That Becomes the opposite You set it specificily for a few specific fights and every where else you have a nerfed abby.
Buff stations like the mermking and wicker books are great since they really aren't about managing and being specific with unique buffs its just going placing or filling a timer.

hence why wendy is more nomadic than you think

1 hour ago, YouKnowWho142 said:

Abigail should be granted maximum strength at all times or that it's hard to get there, but Abigail is ultimately not a character and shouldn't be compared to other characters.

Really though like the player still needs to do the thing they need to do to access what they need.
Why is making ease of access such a problem?
The easiest way to stop some one from doing something is to put a bunch of tasks before they can do it.  IM not even complaing about her other things. just purely the affinities. because I see no use in them early game.

I want to be able to use them. And im sure people feel the same. adding an ease of use would make more people enjoy the character.  Why would you not want that?

 

1 hour ago, YouKnowWho142 said:

it feels more like you just don't enjoy playing Wendy, or you're playing her in a way that isn't fun for you

I play wendy as a resource gatherer. I mostly farm for monster drops. because thats fun for me. and i would like to be able to use her forms more consistently with that. however they don't really let me do that.
Just because you play her and your happy with it doesn't mean other peoples criticisms are invalid. pre reft the affinites are pointless to me. I will swap to shadow once rifts are open because then she actually has some impact there.  and by that point i would have already set up my pipspook farm all over base so don't need the graves skills anymore.

[YouKnowWho142]

26 minutes ago, DVGMedia said:

Wendy is still making progression to boost abby what is so hard about that? Why is this strictly a wendy problem?

Characters with built in progression rely a lot more on them than Wendy does. Walter can upgrade his slingshot, and he does so because it is his primary weapon. Wigfrid's Elding Spear can be upgraded into a primary weapon. Wendy is still a completely functional character without Abigail, and even in a world where Abigail did 0 damage the vex still gives her above average damage. The point of keeping Abigail alive is to make the most out of the vex and provide supplemental damage. Every other follower character also relies on temporary powerups (Burning Bernie, mudslingers, switcherdoodles, and I already explained why Maxwell is a valid exception) and Abigail should not be treated differently. Just like other characters, Abigail's "progression" is access to stronger powerups, because Wendy is not gated from other weapons or encouraged to use a unique one.

26 minutes ago, DVGMedia said:

she really is though compared to many other characters

not even close. there is never a point as Wendy where you need to go out of your way to get her elixirs, you are expected to go to the lunar island anyways so all you have to do is bring a bug net and free blessed sisturn forever, and you also get moon rocks here for the moondial anyways. A stack of mourning glories takes barely any time to manage and her best elixir literally requires one stinger. Compare that to having to craft tons of switcherdoodles, or making slingshot ammo, or gathering souls/embers, making tons of catapults, farming mactusks, crafting books, volts goats for Elding Spears and jelly, or gathering all the random materials for the Merm King tarp and merm guards. It baffles me that you can even say that and believe it. Why is Wendy conditioned to be the character that you play if you don't actually want to play the game? It's a survival game and you should be expected to get the resources that your character needs, Wendy's is much easier and more tame compared to how far other characters need to go.

26 minutes ago, DVGMedia said:

The easiest way to stop some one from doing something is to put a bunch of tasks before they can do it.  IM not even complaing about her other things. just purely the affinities. because I see no use in them early game.

I want to be able to use them. And im sure people feel the same. adding an ease of use would make more people enjoy the character.  Why would you not want that?

There's absolutely nothing stopping you from using them early game, I built my moondial on exactly day 11 in my Wendy run and benefitted from Gestalt Abigail for a good while. Again, I can't speak on shadow Abigail even if I dislike your solution for her, but my main argument is specifically that Gestalt Abigail is in a completely fine spot.

26 minutes ago, DVGMedia said:

I play wendy as a resource gatherer. I mostly farm for monster drops. because thats fun for me. and i would like to be able to use her forms more consistently with that. however they don't really let me do that.

If you play Wendy this way, there is absolutely no need for either of the affinities. Gestalt Abigail is not suited for this role and shadow Abigail overkills trash mobs by an absurd amount. The affinities allow Abigail to be stronger in controlled situations where you actually need the extra power, most specifically bosses. Just use normal Abigail, that's what she's made for.

[DVGMedia]

8 minutes ago, YouKnowWho142 said:

Characters with built in progression rely a lot more on them than Wendy does. Walter can upgrade his slingshot, and he does so because it is his primary weapon.

Abby is wendys whole kit.  And both of those characters you mentioned are also still functioning characters without those upgrades.

 

8 minutes ago, YouKnowWho142 said:

there is never a point as Wendy where you need to go out of your way to get her elixirs

against some fights abby is just not going to be living.

8 minutes ago, YouKnowWho142 said:

but my main argument is specifically that Gestalt Abigail is in a completely fine spot.

But she can be in a better spot.

8 minutes ago, YouKnowWho142 said:

shadow Abigail overkills trash mobs by an absurd amount

exactly which is why i want to be able to use her in day to day fights. Im fine with collecting the sacrifices for that so that i could use shadow abby when i want but i just hate having to manage all the critters in the inventory for no real benefit.

I just want to be able to use the powers given to the character

[YouKnowWho142]

15 minutes ago, DVGMedia said:

Abby is wendys whole kit.  And both of those characters you mentioned are also still functioning characters without those upgrades.

Abigail is not a character, it really is as simple as that. She should not be treated on the same level as characters and she shouldn't be getting permanent benefits that actual characters benefit from. She may have a damage penalty (one that is literally just a damage buff if you do the bare minimum of keeping Abi alive), but Abigail cannot become as strong as Wendy, they are by design meant to be dependent on each other and having Abigail become stronger and stronger goes against that due to her being a follower to begin with.

15 minutes ago, DVGMedia said:

against some fights abby is just not going to be living.

I don't even know what to tell you there. I used Abigail (both normal and gestalt) in every boss fight in my run with no ghastly experience and she didn't die once. This feels really mean to say but it just sounds like you're not very good at controlling Abigail and not utilizing her elixirs very well.

15 minutes ago, DVGMedia said:

But she can be in a better spot.

Wendy does not need more commands period.

15 minutes ago, DVGMedia said:

exactly which is why i want to be able to use her in day to day fights. Im fine with collecting the sacrifices for that so that i could use shadow abby when i want but i just hate having to manage all the critters in the inventory for no real benefit.

Then don't use shadow Abigail? I don't understand why you would be having to use live animals to activate her in situations where she isn't necessary and then be frustrated that you feel like you have to do it.

15 minutes ago, DVGMedia said:

I just want to be able to use the powers given to the character

And you can, just not in literally every situation. That's not what they're designed for. Gestalt Abigail is "permanent" since she's a sidegrade, shadow abigail is temporary since she's a powerup. Abigail should not be becoming super boosted frequently.