Character Design, Moving Forward

[JaxckLl]

I want to open the discussion with a tier list, but if you'll notice by the categories it's not a typical tier list. This is more of a fun-scale than a power-scale, with the actual strongest characters being mid tier as a consequence.

Balanced, Fun to Play. This category is mostly self-explanetory, but what makes these characters fun is that they have significant downsides & significant upsides. Play them at their best and they'll outshine any other character. But they all have something they lack or costs associated with their abilities that has to be managed, creating a unique rythm to the game. Several of these characters also have totally unique content associated with their mechanics which go beyond how most characters are capable of interacting with the world.

• Wendy & Abigail are who Wurt & Webber wish they were. Abigail does make parts of the game easier and she does trivialize certain types of fights. However she's extremely vulnerable in boss fights so managing her in those instances becomes a game in & of itself. Wendy actually has access to more content than most other players specifically in the form of the Pipspook quests. Like Maxwell & Wanda, a skilled Wendy player is rewarded for managing Abigail well by being able to do more damage overall. So not only does Wendy have a more comfortable skill floor than most characters she also has a higher skill ceiling.
• Wickerbottom's books are extremely strong and she has several completely unique mechanics & builds as a consequence. Some of them are cheesy, such as using tentacles for kill Bee Queen (deserved) while some of them are clever exploitations of simple mechanics (such as her ability to mass farm fish or summon hordes of Krampuses). It's unfortunate that Maxwell can read all of her books perfectly well, because otherwise Wickerbottom would be in a really good state right now (the solution is to make Maxwell's reads use 51% durability. This would only allow him to read books once with the second use breaking the book. However if a bookshelf is present, he can get off two casts from each book. This would, like with Winona's catapults, make Wicker's books feel like Wicker's books, usable by others but only maximizable by her). Wicker's insomnia is also a cute upside in a post-Rift world as she can't be knocked out by Grazers while gathering Pure Brilliance. That little interaction is just the sort of thing that makes characters unique & fun.
• Winona on the whole is very much in the positive camp. Her rose-tinted glasses are excellent (great pun too) and the way catapults control now really makes them feel like Winona's mechanic rather than a general use thing. Catapults require very specific circumstances in order to be useful in boss fights, and the rest of her kit (especially that comes from the skill tree) makes the game more engaging by giving the player more mechanics to play with (we should be able to craft Gears using Scrap change my mind). However there are two instances where Winona's mechancis interfere with progression in an unfun way. The first is Winona's ability to skip collecting blueprints. A lucky player can skip enormous amounts of content as a consequence, most particularly if the Winona player happens to get a bundling wrap then she can skip Bee Queen entirely. This is a huge content skip for a required boss (Bundle Wraps are needed to complete the Moonstorm event successfully. Infused Moonstone & Moongleams shouldn't have decay for this exact reason). She can also skip collecting the Replica Chair blueprint for Pearl, which makes Winona the only character in the game that can get the Sawhorse without checking the wiki. And speaking of Pearl, Winona can also skip collecting the seasonal fishes as she can simply buy the special lures from Pearl and then unlock the crafting recipe. Winona is my most played character and I honestly hate this mechanic. It feels so shite to get so many free unlocks without even having to spend any resources. The second problem I have with Winona is that Brightshades don't aggro on to her catapults, while Crystal Deerclops's ice blast destroys them. It feels really clunky to use Catapults in a post-Rift world because they're both dramatically more useful and yet weirdly nerfed at the same time. Both of these issues are really quite small in the grand scheme of things, and Winona is overall a very fun character with strong upsides that only get better the more you play with them.
• Woodie is damn near perfect. He has huge upsides that are measured with quite significant downsides. There's an enormous variety to his mechanics and there's a remarkable amount of gameplay that is completely unique to him. Like with Wendy, his basic mechanics (Lucy, and his early game skill tree crafts) immediately raise the skill floor by making the game easier and less tedious. Also like Wendy, the way his late game powers scale requires the player to really understand the mechanics of bosses and to be skillful in managing his advantages & disadvantages. Moose for example can kill Bee Queen, but you'll need at least two transformations to do so and likely some substantial amount of healing. Figuring out how to work that in while not being nuked by Grumbles is very skill intensive and quite rewarding.
• WX is in a very cool character that is a handful of skill points away from being as good as Woodie. The circuits mechanic is great, it's rewarding & dynamic and while there are objectively better circuits, there are more instances where changing up your circuit mix is the right choice than there are not. I'm very much looking forward to WX's skill tree because there's almost no way this character isn't just going to be even better.
• Wortox I would've called Undertuned just a couple of weeks ago. However his skill tree has given him some fantastic mechanics with the very significant upsides he was missing prior. Previously Wortox was held back by not having that lategame upside potential, with the character really dropping off once everyone has access to quick teleports. Now with how Souls scale, Wortox is rewarded for continuing to develop and focusing on his core mechanics is rewarding well into the end game. I need to get more playtime with Wortox, especially trying to maximize his exceptional boss rushing potential.
• Willow is my least played character. I don't know what it is, but I've just never sat down and played her. Previously I had her down with Wilson, but after really having a look at her rework everything that put me off seems to have been addressed and her upsides have only gotten better. At the moment she seems in a pretty good state and I would like to try her out properly soon.

Undertuned, but Still Fun. These characters have something missing. For the most part it's a clash in their mechanics with things that just don't quite mesh well together. It at some level it makes sense why these mechanics would end up on the same character. But actually playing these characters it feel like what makes them unique is having mechanics that interfere with each other or directly conflict. These characters can still be fun, but it's frustrating because there's no great way to maximize all they have to offer.

• Walter's problem is his slingshot & how it lets him interact with the world. I think it was a mistake to focus on damage from the slingshot rather than utility. It puts Walter in this odd space where maximizing his damage is relatively easy, but being able to engage with the mechanics of fights is relatively hard. While Wicker & Winona can cheese with Grumbles or Catapults, that's not a hard & fast requirement and the player still has to do a lot to manage the fight. Walter on the other hand needs to make sure he has a stack of Thulecite. Woby is weird, because mechanically it would be most fun if Woby scaled into being a much stronger Beefalo. But flavourfully & mechanically she functions as an easy to get, but very weak Beefalo. This further increases Walter's dependence on the Slingshot for damage, since he has no advantage in engaging in a normal fight and every one of his mechanics offers a downside. The irony is that while Walter feels like he was designed to appeal to newer players with lots of easy-access mechanics, he's actually fairly challenging as getting hit is unusually punishing. The solution is really very simple. Give Walter skills that let Woby scale into being better than a Beefalo. Suddenly Walter turns into a super high skill ceiling character, as you can get in more damage in melee AND be the best character at engaging at range. Figuring out a fight pattern that maximizes both while also managing Woby's health would be really fun in the same way Wendy & Abigail are right now. As is, Walter is a character you switch to to cheese Fuelweaver or if you want a somewhat more challenging early game.
• Wormwood is just a mess. The sanity mechanic is extra weird, especially since boards are so critical to accessing much of the content of the game. Why am I being punished for trying to play the game? And because it's so obviously awful, the balance is far too generous. Chop a couple trees, plant a couple acorns, etc, etc. It's far too punishing of a downside and so the upside has been scaled into being trivial. The same is true with the healing. Obviously not having access to healing food same as any other character is terrible. And as such Wormwood gets overly generous healing from fertilizers, the best of which is a Bucket of Poop which costs boards. Playing Wormwood isn't particularly challenging compared to other characters, but it feels like I'm fighting with the game just to play. Wormwood's sanity & healing mecahics are the design equivalent of controller drift. Manageable sure, but by no means pleasant. Wormwood's next major upside is improved farming, which might I point out completely clashes with the flavour of the sanity mechanic. Why do I lose sanity when chopping down a tree, but I don't lose sanity when picking a Watermelon or killing a Lureplant? It's a mess. On top of that, the lack of healing from food devalues many many food stuffs. The irony of Wormwood's hunger is that his best dish is Meaty Stew, a dish which is otherwise suboptimal since it doesn't provide much sanity or health. Wormwood is thus not rewarded for engaging in agriculture, and in fact is somehow even more of a carnivore than Wigfreid. Wormwood's spring form is cool, and I really like how many little mechanics he has access to through his skill tree (the Syrup of Ipicaca is genuinely the greatest item that has ever existed in this game). However the spring form is unreliable to activate and it isn't even obvious when it is active if you're wearing a hat. The frustrating part of all this is that Wormwood has legitimate upsides and lots of really cool mechanics. The problem is that his optimal rythm of play doesn't reward or even use those mechanics. The Syrup of Ipicaca is totally hilarious, but also completely superfluous and unnecessary. My final note on Wormwood is how stupid (unbelievably, utterly, totally moronic) it is that he gets bonuses for interacting with mushrooms. I thought he was supposed to be a plant? Mushrooms are fungi, which are much more closely related to animals than they are to plants.If anything Wormwood should hate mushrooms since as detritivores & parisites they feed on plants.

Feels like Cheating. These characters are strong. Their upside is that they just deal more damage, often in ways which end up minimizing the risks associated with fights. This is in contrast to the balanced characters whose ability to deal more damage is offset by that damage source requiring unusual management. These characters aren't bad or even unfun necessarily, indeed they're the strongest in the game if you're measuring by boss killing potential.

• Maxwell & Wanda, aka the real challenge characters. What's great about these two is that they are incredibly powerful, substantially more so than the typical survivor. But that power comes at the enormous risk of having an extremely small health pool while at maximum strength. The result is that the player is rewarded for being better at the game. If you understand how the mechanics of a fight work, you are rewarded for that by being able to take the fight faster. This is excellent design, and while I personally prefer other characters that are less intense to play I've never felt bored while playing Maxwell or Wanda. I'm as strong as Wolfgang, stronger even, but the low health & dynamic nature of my power means that I still have to pay attention to the game and I can't just solve the problem by having a stack of Pierogis. I actually have to play the game and I'm rewarded for doing so and it's great. It also flavourfully makes total sense that these two are the strongest characters. Maxwell used to rule the Constant, it makes sense that he's still got some of that ability to totally dominate. Wanda is a time traveler who broke into the Constant by accident and it's implied she could probably break out if she really wanted to. These two are both only a step behind Charlie herself and it sure as hell feels like it when playing.

• Wigfreid I would've put in balanced, but that honestly would not have been appropriate. Carnivory is a significant downside, but it doesn't meaningfully affect her ability to fight and it doesn't really come up while using her upsides. Compare this instead to Wendy or Woodie, who have a similar damage potential in the fight itself but they have much more to deal with while doing so. Wigfreid's carnivory is also offset by meat being a primary drop from fighting. Everything about her character rewards & enhances fighting, and most of the time you're playing Wigfreid she's just better than other characters and there's no real cost to that quality. She's still quite fun however because instead of her balance coming from resource management, her rythm comes from maximizing all of her awesome abilities. By default Wigfreid gives you more in combat, but the skill ceiling on just how much more is quite high which makes her fun to play regardless. My only real complaint is with her carnivory. She would be so much more interesting to play if she was a vegetarian, or perhaps pescetarian. That would give her an actual resource management headache, but one which would actually be interesting to address. Making her pescetarian would also give some much needed love to fish which is an entire broad mechanic that feels super tacked on at the moment.

• Wolfgang just hits harder and thus tends to finish fights faster, significantly reducing the risk associated with most bosses. And what's the cost of that? You have a moderately higher food requirement (which also addresses his reduced sanity drain) and have to waste time working out. Wolfgang takes stressful fights and makes them intense, and he takes intense fights and makes them mundane. He's boring, there's no two ways about it. Mechanically, flavourfully, Wolfgang is milk toast.

• Wurt's Merm army is a lesser offender than Webber's Spiders, but she has the same essential problem with minion scaling. It's honestly silly just how uninteractive playing Wurt can be, as her Merms can do literally everything. The only saving grace Wurt has to being fun at all is that she is vegetarian and Merms can't interact with crops. At least there's one mechanic in the game Wurt is actually encouraged to engage with. Otherwise Wurt is just incredibly non-interactive with extreme upsides that can't be shared with other characters (the Marsh-tile speed boost is dumb), and downsides that are both not very fun & somehow too much (not being able to get benefit from most mob drops sucks, and the way fish are balanced with her is just bizarre. Not being able to trade with the Pig King is a shockingly large downside, as with any other character other than Wortox Gold is basically a free resource). Wurt is the character you switch to to kill Bee Queen while afk, stepping away to make a coffee while your minions play the game for you. She's not unfun to play necessarily, but her optimal play pattern certainly is. It is awesome to just nuke bosses that would otherwise be a pain in the neck to deal with.

Not Fun Swap Fodder. These characters have awesome upsides, that they can freel share with teammates as they are consumable items. Spending any amount of time playing these characters is just dull compared to literally anyone else as they don't have real downsides nor a unique rythm.

• In the ideal world no character would be in this category, but for some reason Wilson needs to be the default character. That is bad design. Long gone are the days when just having average stats & a beard was enough to make a character stand out. Wilson, even with his rework, feels super archaic. Playing Wilson feels like having Goldeneye shooting mechanics in Counterstrike. It's just wrong. And if that was all that would be fine. Nobody is required to play with a character they don't like and so while Wilson is essentially & objectively less fun than other characters, but that's not what Wilson is anymore. Now Wilson is a cheatcode to quickly unlock the Archive. Wilson's alchemy is practically necessary to mass produce certain goods. More so than most other characters it feels like I'm being told I should be playing Wilson. But Wilson sucks. The solution is already in the game. We have this machine called the "Alchemy Engine", why can't we do Alchemy at the "Alchemy Engine"? Every character should have access to Alchemy while at the Alchemy Engine. Wilson's advantage would then be that he gets cheaper Alchemy and he can do it anywhere. Boom, now he's a interesting character and it doesn't feel like I'm playing badly because I don't want to play ******* Wilson.
• Warly unlike Wilson actually has a character. His flavour is excellent (heh) and his mechanical upsides are superb. His unique recipes adding value to items that are otherwise somewhat underwhelming is great design (Glowberry Mouse & Volt Golt Jelly are my favourites). The problem with Warly is that all of this doesn't serve him, it serves whichever character you switch into after. The irony of Warly is that he is nigh essential for high end, fully optimized late game play, but that he will never actually be there at the end. There have been some excellent discussions on how to rework his hunger mechanic, but I find what really makes Warly less fun is how centralized around the crockpot he is. He doesn't have any advantages in collecting resources or farming (that isn't dependant on him first mass producing something at the crockpots), his best dishes & spices are seasonally locked and completely unavailable at the start of the game, and his unique bonuses are best used by just about anyone else. I feel like I'm obligated to switch to Warly at some point and while that switch isn't anywhere close to as feel-bad as with Wilson, my time with Warly does largely end up staying at base and wrapping & unwrapping bundles while clicking on crockpots. Thrilling & engaging gameplay he is not. Thing is, Warly's damn close to being great. He needs what Winona has gotten, in that he needs to benefit disproportionately from his dishes & spices. Warly should also have Wormwood's fast farming, perhaps even going to far as to craft seeds from crops without a bird. Warly needs to be able to get into Agriculture on day 1 and he needs enough bonuses that aren't dependent on the crockpot that you're not glued to the base while playing him. 

Actively Makes the Game Worse. These characters have something about them that makes Don't Starve overall just a worse game. There's something about these characters that's just wrong, in a way that more than just a rework can fix. Frankly I'm amazed at my self-restraint in not putting Wilson in this category.

• Webber's problem is his spiders. His spider swarms trivialize fights that lack crowd control. The player is encouraged to build a lot of spiders, which is a huge technical problem as spiders lag the game very badly. It sucks being encouraged to make the gameplay worse, while making the game play worse. Webber's resource economy is tied quite fundamentally to spiders, but is dependent on their drops. This makes Webber a cannibal, which is a weird thing to have flavourfully in a game as whimsical as Don't Starve (the setting is gothic, not depressing). I don't see how Webber can be made fun, interesting, and literally not game breaking without completely reworking spiders. As mentioned earlier Wurt is just a better version of the minion commander character. But Wurt is so much better and yet still trivializes the game and makes it less fun. Somehow Webber is even worse. I'd honestly be happy to see Webber removed completely from the game, overhauled totally, and then brought back. One of the biggest reasons I don't play multiplayer much is because Webber exists, and honestly if Webber were gone I'd be much more comfortable joining multiplayer and opening up my games for other players.
• Wes's problem is much less literal than Webber. While Webber should be removed from the game for quite literally breaking multiplayer, Wes needs a similar degree of overhaul so that he can be an actual challenge. Because at the moment he's just a tedium machine. Wes doesn't really make the game harder, he just makes the game take longer. But his characterization as a challenge character when he's not has created a toxic culture in the community around character selection. There's no such thing as a casual Wes and there's no such thing as a Wes main who isn't a ****. Wes's existence has encouraged players to fixate on other players' character selections because if they pick Wes they're just having less fun. Meanwhile Maxwell & Wanda are actually challenging to play, but they have the enormous upside of also being the two strongest characters in the game. This makes them actually fun to play, and thus the kind of toxicity that surroundes Wes does not surround those other characters. I'd like to see Wes removed and totally overhauled before being brought back because every time you see someone playing Wes they're just doing it as a meme. They're having less fun, and when people are having less fun they behave badly. I don't want to play multiplayer with Webber because he'll break the software that is the game, but I also don't want to play multiplayer because a Wes might show up and inevitably be super toxic.

[Dr.Webber]

I made the skill tree. It’s not quite finished yet, but it showed address the issue issue. by making the spiders better in order to decrease the need for so many. Let me know if you have anything to add.

skill tree:
 

(befriended nurse spider to unlock)
    •    Unbreakable friendship: Make decorated dens  not break when attacked and spiders in the  Bedazzled range only attack attackers and nurses spawn from tier 3 + decorated dens ground webs no longer reduce



    •    Oral obliging : cause spiders to “hammer” by hitting the structure you want to be hammered once in case of a miss click use webby whistle to cancel demolition, they eat yucuse snot now when you’re stuck, can rummage through hound mounds(blue and red gems)/burrows (stolen items as well as rock, Flint, nighter, and gold)/hollow stump (stolen items)/splumonkey pod (stolen items)/marotter den(stolen items)/tidy hidy holes(for collected dust) items gained by rummaging will temporarily be wet due to saliva you can sugar the spiders too start rummaging by blowing the whistle near the thing you want them to rummage through
   


    •    Silk harvester: razors can be used to remove webbing from tiles dropping two

    •    Rapid Growth: Webber can upgrade dens with 4 silk instead of 5 silk
 
 


    •    Regeneration sensitization:increase stats from nurse spiders for Webber(15 hp)

    •    Nocturnally adept: partial night vision  (sense spiders walk around at night) only silhouettes  not enough to not be attacked by Charlie but enough to  see where your going, reduced sanity lose from dusk or night              60-80% during dawn and 40-60% during night.


    •    Deep den sleeper:Stats for sleeping in dens to 2 health and 3 health per second 

    •    No picky eater: Webber has the ability to eat pig skin, bunny puffs, or any non human edible meats that pigs and spiders eat for 50-60 hunger

 


    •    Den Relocation: Tier 1 dens can be picked up by Webber and relocated (affects Decorated Dens + can remove and relocate the stickers)(pulled from @JJ0264)

    •    Unnatural brood: You are now able to craft the itsy bitsy nest reusing the baby spiders from the forge and they fill up a Polar Bearger Bin like item called the itsy bitsy nest and they would act as distractions somewhat like the parasitic shading  but the victim wouldn’t be immune to damage they each could only be outside the itsy bitsy nest for a total of 8 minutes after that they return to the itsy bitsy nest and nap and they’ll need to charge back up before using them again so they hunger durability that can be refilled using meat, honey, or electric milk/monster milk similar to the eye mask, but you decide if,when,and how many you takeout at a time so you can have them out over the course of multiple days without needing to recharge them. If you’re smart about it, also depending on what beard skin you have on will determine what they look like  they would look like tiny versions of what spiders from a den that has a queen that looks like that beards respective Webber skin as well as the egg sack having the same color,you get 6 slots with 12-20 second cool down until you can spawn the next one and they would do 9 damage,have 7 hp, upon death one will respond every 90 seconds 
(You need this to craft other 3 crafts and after the first 4 uses you need to replace the den decorating set for five more uses each time you run out)
8 silk, 3 paper, and 1 spider egg, 1 den decorating set,24 health

Concept examples:

 








(like this except they smile like befriended spiders)











    •    Carecrafts :  (unnatural brood required)
?:

?:

homemade den: You can make a homemade den if you place a cookie in the homemade den it will turn 2 spiders into that type, every time the den has a spider added it lose 1% durability, you can find out how much durability there is by inspecting, and you can repair it using silk but maybe by 2-5%. it has 12 spiders with the inventory of a scaled chest but for spiders only, it’ll take 90 seconds for each spider to respawn it (and how it will respawn a spider after the 90 seconds is the lightning conductor purple gem combination will cause lightning to strike around up in the respawned to spider crawl out of the ground like rapid king as a reference to how you unlock Webber in solo Don’t Starve)
it will spawn that Webbing Wickerbottom spawns with Overcoming Arachnophobia around it, craft the homemade den  with some number of bone shards and silk to make a sort of kit when you add a purple gem, a lightning conductor and one use of the den decorating set, you could also call the spiders out of the den by interacting with it
And it can be broken using a hammer


 

    •    Silkcrafts:
Silk shooter: 
?:

Silk spindle:@blacknight7890 came up with an idea I re named it and changed its look but other then that it’s all there’s Learn to craft a 'Silk spindle', [like a giant spindle with spider hair and  a finial on it (with white string when silk is on it)] a structure that can be placed near decorated spider dens. Spiders will spin webs onto it over time, can be harvested for silk." [passive silk farming]

finial looks like this:



    •    Garden spider :farm like Webber does in the gorge and learn more from the gardeneer hat


(Icon borrowed from @BiddoBams’ Warly skill tree)
    •    Spider Goatherder: learn to milk volt goats that won’t be disturbed by Webber anymore and calm charged volt goats by feeding them any number of Wobsters, bananas,meat,Burch nuts, pomegranates,eggs, Asparagus, pumpkin seeds (doing this while not charged will make them follow you for a short period time to allow for easier relocation)

    •    Silk stitch: You can now repair things with silk like Winona’s trusty tape

    •    acidophilic arachnid: when in acid rain Webber gets: 

Attack Damage    Physical DamageTaken    Move Speed
+5%    -2.5%    +1.5%

    •    Queen decorator: you can now decorate spider queen that will give her all the same effects of a decorated den(if you have unbreakable friendship, decorations won’t fall off when hit and will only attack attackers), when fighting nearby, spider queen will send over befriended nurse spiders to your aid

    •    Animalistic arachnid: Webber has the same all fours running ability as Wilbur and wonkey, when you fight bare handed you use your claws doing double the normal amount of damage

    •     In the spirit of friendship: When dying with Webber will drop 2 spider glands, Webber can give players the shoebox and they could only use it for its calling off aggressive spider function

    •    Garden spiders:
Flame touched spiders:  has built in scale mail as well as can cook
Switcherdoodle: 2 monster meat, 2 silk, 2 fire nettle fronds

Concept art by @chenxx



:
:

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    •      

    •    

   
          
 Alignments:
 
     

shadow spider care:
 
The Queen will reward your loyalty with  the recipe to help your spider friends evade dangers

 2 monster meat, 3 silk, and 4 dark pedals
The shadow spider is a spider that will teleport like shadow creatures after attacking. They also have faster walking and attack speed then normal spiders, have 450 health, and deal 30 damage.

 
You can power spiders by using a new item called _____
After biting a mob That mob will receive 25 planar and normal damage for the next four minutes with mobs of the opposing alignment receiving an extra 10 planar damage per minute and the spider will lose they’re power until next time you power the spiders

 


Lunar spider care: 
 

The cryptic founder will reward your curiosity, with  the recipe to help your spider friends blitz dangers

 2 monster meat, 3 silk, and 4 lune tree blossoms 
The lunar spider is a spider that will move like greater gestalts when attacking (Wigfrid’s elding spear ability, but with a larger range). They also have faster walking and attack speed then normal spiders, have 450 health, and deal 30 damage.

You can power spiders by using a new item called _____
After biting a mob That mob will receive 25 planar and normal damage for the next four minutes with mobs of the opposing alignment receiving an extra 10 planar damage per minute and the spider will lose they’re power until next time you power the spiders

 

[Wawchik]

I don't really understand, what's the point of this post?

[GrapeVruit]

I know tierlists are subjective, especially if you base it off how fun something is, but putting Wilson as unfun and a swap character is just insane to me. I've been having a blast playing Wilson recently, as it feels I'm rewarded for using my game knowledge and the tools the world provides instead of relying on OP character abilities that make the game trivial. With how strong certain skilltrees make some of these characters, it's a breath of fresh air to play someone who doesn't rely on any gimmicks and can conquer it all with the power of their mind. Also, the opal transmute saves time but I feel like that's not enough to warrant swapping to Wilson.

[Gashzer]

On 3/25/2025 at 4:05 PM, JaxckLl said:

Undertuned, but Still Fun. These characters have something missing. For the most part it's a clash in their mechanics with things that just don't quite mesh well together. It at some level it makes sense why these mechanics would end up on the same character. But actually playing these characters it feel like what makes them unique is having mechanics that interfere with each other or directly conflict. These characters can still be fun, but it's frustrating because there's no great way to maximize all they have to offer.

• Walter's problem is his slingshot & how it lets him interact with the world. I think it was a mistake to focus on damage from the slingshot rather than utility. It puts Walter in this odd space where maximizing his damage is relatively easy, but being able to engage with the mechanics of fights is relatively hard. While Wicker & Winona can cheese with Grumbles or Catapults, that's not a hard & fast requirement and the player still has to do a lot to manage the fight. Walter on the other hand needs to make sure he has a stack of Thulecite. Woby is weird, because mechanically it would be most fun if Woby scaled into being a much stronger Beefalo. But flavourfully & mechanically she functions as an easy to get, but very weak Beefalo. This further increases Walter's dependence on the Slingshot for damage, since he has no advantage in engaging in a normal fight and every one of his mechanics offers a downside. The irony is that while Walter feels like he was designed to appeal to newer players with lots of easy-access mechanics, he's actually fairly challenging as getting hit is unusually punishing. The solution is really very simple. Give Walter skills that let Woby scale into being better than a Beefalo. Suddenly Walter turns into a super high skill ceiling character, as you can get in more damage in melee AND be the best character at engaging at range. Figuring out a fight pattern that maximizes both while also managing Woby's health would be really fun in the same way Wendy & Abigail are right now. As is, Walter is a character you switch to to cheese Fuelweaver or if you want a somewhat more challenging early game.

Walters skilltree has given him massive flexibility, speed is by far the best attribute of a tamed beefalo and Walter now has the fastest beefalo in the game from day 1, so I would disagree with you and say Walter does in fact have the strongest beefalo type currently.

You could of argued that pre-skill Walter depends on the slingshot for combat due do his downside but this isn't the case anymore with "pioneer panache", "field medic", "helping horns", "twine twirler", thulecite frame AoE freeze/slow down rounds and wobys build in inventory. Walter has no melee damage boost but he has a massive amount of melee utility now with massively reduced sanity loss, super powerful cheap healing and the ability to AoE freeze hordes or slow down bosses so he can 1v1 them with hambat.

The only thing is you need to wear is the upgraded pinecone pioneer hat and use body armour to maximize all this utility. To help Walter with this, Woby's inventory does a good job replacing a backpack, helping horns and twine twirler helps make log suits cheap and quick to mass produce. Other indirect buffs to a non-backpack playstyle is better use of body slot items like buffy vest, belt of hunger.

Everything in Walter's kit synergises with each other, he's one of the best if not the best designed character in the game.

[Prinha]

On 3/25/2025 at 5:05 PM, JaxckLl said:

A lucky player can skip enormous amounts of content as a consequence, most particularly if the Winona player happens to get a bundling wrap then she can skip Bee Queen entirely. This is a huge content skip for a required boss (Bundle Wraps are needed to complete the Moonstorm event successfully. Infused Moonstone & Moongleams shouldn't have decay for this exact reason). She can also skip collecting the Replica Chair blueprint for Pearl, which makes Winona the only character in the game that can get the Sawhorse without checking the wiki.

Sometimes I wonder if some people posting on this board play the same game as me. Wah! Wah! Somebody can have a blue print slightly earlier. Wah! Wah!

You haven't thought this through at all before posting, have you?

Pray tell, how does Winona scan a Bundling Wrap in a solo world without killing BQ? By killing Klaus? Guess what else Klaus drops? That's right, the Bundling Wrap blueprint! Oh no! She didn't kill the correct boss, nerf plx!
And how does Winona scan a wooden chair without first making one? From other players?
 

[Radicaljoe]

1 minute ago, Prinha said:

And how does Winona scan a wooden chair without first making one? From other players?

I think they mean Winona can scan the ruins chair for Pearl to get the sawhorse to make a wooden chair, but going insane for 20 seconds to find the sitting guy isn't that hard either, and it's free.

[JaxckLl]

12 minutes ago, Prinha said:

Sometimes I wonder if some people posting on this board play the same game as me. Wah! Wah! Somebody can have a blue print slightly earlier. Wah! Wah!

You haven't thought this through at all before posting, have you?

Pray tell, how does Winona scan a Bundling Wrap in a solo world without killing BQ? By killing Klaus? Guess what else Klaus drops? That's right, the Bundling Wrap blueprint! Oh no! She didn't kill the correct boss, nerf plx!
And how does Winona scan a wooden chair without first making one? From other players?
 

You shouldn't be posting on the forums if your only goal is to be toxic.

[Radicaljoe]

I made my own version

[Prinha]

7 minutes ago, Radicaljoe said:

I think they mean Winona can scan the ruins chair for Pearl to get the sawhorse to make a wooden chair, but going insane for 20 seconds to find the sitting guy isn't that hard either, and it's free.

Insanity. 
That's exactly what people need when they are strolling through the ruins. An unstackable item that can't be dropped on the ground taking up another precious inventory slot.
Given the choice between that and going insane in the ruins. Not even close. Most people will be insane in the ruins early game anyways. 

But they clearly complained that

13 minutes ago, Prinha said:

which makes Winona the only character in the game that can get the Sawhorse without checking the wiki.

Seriously?

3 minutes ago, JaxckLl said:

You shouldn't be posting on the forums if your only goal is to be toxic.

My goal is not to be toxic. I am expressing my utter astonishment at this giant wall of text complaining about getting a BP from Klaus and not from BQ and pointing out holes in your argumentation aswell as lack of knowledge. All of that serves to show this post has no grounds for serious discussion.

In any case you don't get to decide where I post and what about just like I don't get to decide who can make character tier lists and post them shamelessly.

[gaymime]

On 3/25/2025 at 4:05 PM, JaxckLl said:

• Wes's problem is much less literal than Webber. While Webber should be removed from the game for quite literally breaking multiplayer, Wes needs a similar degree of overhaul so that he can be an actual challenge. Because at the moment he's just a tedium machine. Wes doesn't really make the game harder, he just makes the game take longer. But his characterization as a challenge character when he's not has created a toxic culture in the community around character selection. There's no such thing as a casual Wes and there's no such thing as a Wes main who isn't a ****. Wes's existence has encouraged players to fixate on other players' character selections because if they pick Wes they're just having less fun. Meanwhile Maxwell & Wanda are actually challenging to play, but they have the enormous upside of also being the two strongest characters in the game. This makes them actually fun to play, and thus the kind of toxicity that surroundes Wes does not surround those other characters. I'd like to see Wes removed and totally overhauled before being brought back because every time you see someone playing Wes they're just doing it as a meme. They're having less fun, and when people are having less fun they behave badly. I don't want to play multiplayer with Webber because he'll break the software that is the game, but I also don't want to play multiplayer because a Wes might show up and inevitably be super toxic.

what did i ever personally do to you that you decided to insult and degrade me while telling me me that i am a toxic and bad person who behaves badly in pubs and that my favourite character should be removed?

i'm not sure you considered that other players might be real human people with thoughts and feelings and motivations outside of your own before posting this because this is some pretty nasty stuff you've put onto the backs of strangers

[hyoton123]

Wes players must be destroyed.

[gaymime]

4 minutes ago, hyoton123 said:

Wes players must be destroyed.

at the very minimum, it seems

[xhyom]

We all know that Wes' players actually kill god on day 3 and never starve 

[Mysterious box]

On 3/25/2025 at 12:05 PM, JaxckLl said:

Walter's problem is his slingshot & how it lets him interact with the world. I think it was a mistake to focus on damage from the slingshot rather than utility. It puts Walter in this odd space where maximizing his damage is relatively easy, but being able to engage with the mechanics of fights is relatively hard. While Wicker & Winona can cheese with Grumbles or Catapults, that's not a hard & fast requirement and the player still has to do a lot to manage the fight. Walter on the other hand needs to make sure he has a stack of Thulecite. Woby is weird, because mechanically it would be most fun if Woby scaled into being a much stronger Beefalo. But flavourfully & mechanically she functions as an easy to get, but very weak Beefalo. This further increases Walter's dependence on the Slingshot for damage, since he has no advantage in engaging in a normal fight and every one of his mechanics offers a downside. The irony is that while Walter feels like he was designed to appeal to newer players with lots of easy-access mechanics, he's actually fairly challenging as getting hit is unusually punishing. The solution is really very simple. Give Walter skills that let Woby scale into being better than a Beefalo. Suddenly Walter turns into a super high skill ceiling character, as you can get in more damage in melee AND be the best character at engaging at range. Figuring out a fight pattern that maximizes both while also managing Woby's health would be really fun in the same way Wendy & Abigail are right now. As is, Walter is a character you switch to to cheese Fuelweaver or if you want a somewhat more challenging early game.

I disagree on the slingshot part but I've gone over why trying to make it a utility tool just isn't a great idea many times in the past so what I do want to talk about is Woby. Her gimmick is that she's cowardly and doesn't like to fight/get hurt turning her into a combat mount would just break her character much like if Wigfrid started eating vegetables due to learning to stomach them or Wes suddenly tapped into godlike powers and starred shooting laser beams from his hands. Woby as she is already does a good job competing with the beefalo because she simply has more to offer in her current state when compared to them even if she's only tailored to slingshot use if you bring her into combat specifically.

Personally I also disagree with the placements of Wolfgang and Willow but everyone has their own opinions on tier lists so I can't complain it is a interesting list though.

[Well-met]

walter literally holds the world record to killing FW the fastest I don't think hes "under tuned"

[Arcwell]

8 minutes ago, Well-met said:

walter literally holds the world record to killing FW the fastest

No? What record are you referring to?

Current unseeded WR is 24:31 by Salem as Wolfgang.

[Guille6785]

Bundle wrap is not required to do moonstorms, this hasn't been the case for literally 3 years (and before that you could just use telelocator)

[Echsrick]

On 3/25/2025 at 5:05 PM, JaxckLl said:

I would've called Undertuned just a couple of weeks ago. However his skill tree has given him some fantastic mechanics with the very significant upsides he was missing prior. Previously Wortox was held back by not having that lategame upside potential, with the character really dropping off once everyone has access to quick teleports. Now with how Souls scale, Wortox is rewarded for continuing to develop and focusing on his core mechanics is rewarding well into the end game. I need to get more playtime with Wortox, especially trying to maximize his exceptional boss rushing potential.

i do not aggree with this, his skill tree was barely something of worth

[JaxckLl]

1 hour ago, Mysterious box said:

I disagree on the slingshot part but I've gone over why trying to make it a utility tool just isn't a great idea many times in the past so what I do want to talk about is Woby. Her gimmick is that she's cowardly and doesn't like to fight/get hurt turning her into a combat mount would just break her character much like if Wigfrid started eating vegetables due to learning to stomach them or Wes suddenly tapped into godlike powers and starred shooting laser beams from his hands. Woby as she is already does a good job competing with the beefalo because she simply has more to offer in her current state when compared to them even if she's only tailored to slingshot use if you bring her into combat specifically.

Personally I also disagree with the placements of Wolfgang and Willow but everyone has their own opinions on tier lists so I can't complain it is a interesting list though.

Willow I fully admit I haven't really played. I think I have about 10 minutes with her across every Don't Starve game. She's on the chart where she is because I had to put her somewhere.

That's kind of my point though about Walter & Wigfried (& Wormwood). The way they've been characterized conflicts with mechanically what would make for the most engaging character to play. There's a tension there that has led to some awkward design decisions. I like Walter's slingshot and I like that he starts with a free (and upgradable) beefalo. Woby is a great mechanic. What I don't like about Walter is how it feels like the right way to play him is to lock a boss in place somehow then sit at the edge of the arena & hold F. In my experience it feels more tense due to Walter & Woby's downsides trying to do a fight normally (aka with some kind of melee weapon & kiting). Now I haven't played to 15 insight with Walter because I bounced right off of him due to that awkwardness. He doesn't feel different to play, so even though he is definitely stronger with his skill tree, my experience was that he's still not as fun as other characters that are expected to actually interact with enemies.

All of the characters have existed for a very long time. Players have had literally years to play with this content. I have no problems with literally years old content being totally overhauled & changed. Now some of this is coming from the tabletop world where having your game be completely changed every few years is pretty normal. There's aspects of the game that haven't been touched in literally a decade and I would be fine if they changed. That includes things that seem as fundamental as "Wigfried is a carnivore" or "Wormwood is the best farmer".

[Mysterious box]

26 minutes ago, JaxckLl said:

Willow I fully admit I haven't really played. I think I have about 10 minutes with her across every Don't Starve game. She's on the chart where she is because I had to put her somewhere.

That's kind of my point though about Walter & Wigfried (& Wormwood). The way they've been characterized conflicts with mechanically what would make for the most engaging character to play. There's a tension there that has led to some awkward design decisions. I like Walter's slingshot and I like that he starts with a free (and upgradable) beefalo. Woby is a great mechanic. What I don't like about Walter is how it feels like the right way to play him is to lock a boss in place somehow then sit at the edge of the arena & hold F. In my experience it feels more tense due to Walter & Woby's downsides trying to do a fight normally (aka with some kind of melee weapon & kiting). Now I haven't played to 15 insight with Walter because I bounced right off of him due to that awkwardness. He doesn't feel different to play, so even though he is definitely stronger with his skill tree, my experience was that he's still not as fun as other characters that are expected to actually interact with enemies.

All of the characters have existed for a very long time. Players have had literally years to play with this content. I have no problems with literally years old content being totally overhauled & changed. Now some of this is coming from the tabletop world where having your game be completely changed every few years is pretty normal. There's aspects of the game that haven't been touched in literally a decade and I would be fine if they changed. That includes things that seem as fundamental as "Wigfried is a carnivore" or "Wormwood is the best farmer".

The goal Walter puts forth is to avoid getting hit and while it can be taken to the extreme by exploiting fights in a way where the enemy can't reach you that isn't necessarily how your intended to play him your mean to actively dodge while firing on the enemy or melee while shooting in between kitting downtime. Making him entirely commit to melee just sands away the main unique aspect of his combat but even if you dislike the slingshot gameplay his pinetree hat makes a full melee playstyle more than viable. But turning Woby into a combat mount is in direct conflict with not only Walter and Woby's design but their lore as well. Even in the case of Winona you can setup fights in ways that let you just blitz the boss down with catapults while they can't fight back but clearly that's not the intended method for dealing with boss fights the same is true for Walter.

33 minutes ago, JaxckLl said:

There's aspects of the game that haven't been touched in literally a decade and I would be fine if they changed. That includes things that seem as fundamental as "Wigfried is a carnivore" or "Wormwood is the best farmer".

At that point there's no longer a point in characters having unique abilities if their traits don't need to influence how you approach the game your just playing different Wilson skins. Wormwood not being able through traditional means doesn't mean he wasn't good at combat just as much as farming as even pre skill tree his bramble husk shredded hordes and make him immune to stunlocks while his traps made for great defenses against hound waves and the like if you were willing to invest in a less proactive approach.

As for Wigfrid while not as impactful her downside pushes the player towards combat by allowing her to take direct advantage of eatting common non violent alternatives like berries.

Changing Walter's slingshot to not be a weapon once again calls his downsides into question which were clearly made with ranged combat in mind and this carries over to Woby who will not let you attack enemies directly, flees from danger, and bucks you making you take extra damage for not kiting effectively despite her increased mobility. You can take away all the downside that push you towards this playstyle sure but at that point your not really playing Walter are you?

This isn't to say Walter can't be played as a melee character but if you change Woby into just a regular beefalo and remove the ranged combat aspect from Walter you end up with Wilson with a beefalo as at that point he's no longer offering a unique gameplay loop all I can say is I recommend playing him longer.

[Chewabacca]

16 hours ago, JaxckLl said:

What I don't like about Walter is how it feels like the right way to play him is to lock a boss in place somehow then sit at the edge of the arena & hold F.

If this is the right way to play him, then I've never played Walter the "right" way, and I'd bet most other Walter players haven't either.