[Poll] On Character Downsides

[GetNerfedOn]

[Cheggf]

I don't think question 2 has one answer. I think there should be characters for all aspects of that. While I feel like most characters could do with some more notable downsides than they do right now (Most of them are practically nonexistent and most people I've seen literally do not even know what the downsides are supposed to be) not all of them need to be equally intense. Characters like Warly and Wormwood should naturally have stricter downsides than, say, Willow and Woodie, and obviously Wilson should never have any. 

[GetNerfedOn]

1 hour ago, Cheggf said:

I don't think question 2 has one answer. I think there should be characters for all aspects of that. While I feel like most characters could do with some more notable downsides than they do right now (Most of them are practically nonexistent and most people I've seen literally do not even know what the downsides are supposed to be) not all of them need to be equally intense. Characters like Warly and Wormwood should naturally have stricter downsides than, say, Willow and Woodie, and obviously Wilson should never have any. 

That's fair and a product of hurried phrase construction; i simply want to see personal preferences here. I'll reword the question to fit this change.

[Cheggf]

Oh no I forgot to vote for Walter as one of the more fun downside characters. His downsides aren't that harsh but they do encourage you to play differently to adapt to them, which is how downsides should be. 

[_mylilsunshine_]

No poll for which character has the most unfun downsides to play around? If there is I would vote for Warly

[GetNerfedOn]

27 minutes ago, _mylilsunshine_ said:

No poll for which character has the most unfun downsides to play around? If there is I would vote for Warly

i would have added that but i'm simply not in the right frame of mind to invite a little more doom and gloom onto an already doomy and gloomy place

but hey since you mentioned it when i feel saner i'll make a poll specifically for this preference of discussion

[Edible Coal]

47 minutes ago, _mylilsunshine_ said:

No poll for which character has the most unfun downsides to play around? If there is I would vote for Warly

im actually surprise theres like 8 people who voted that his downside is fun to play around....
is really isnt because you have to spam high hunger food all the time just so you can get past the days and still function as a character

and is isnt the case for wormwood or walter where the character kit provide solutions to your issues

( wormwood has easy access to farms , can sleep to heal, and bat bat for battles, growing seeds to recover sanity)

(walter dont drop sanity unless get hurt, has pinecone hat, woby, range style combat, easy access to jerky)

[Chewabacca]

Voted Warly for "fun downside" more for the idea than how it plays out: I love the idea of having to switch around dishes and actually having a use for food I'd otherwise let rot. I enjoy farming and all the different ways of digging around for food this game has to offer. In a world where Warly gets rewarded for non-repeat low-hunger dishes and punished more for just spamming meaty stews, he'd probably shoot up to my most-played or 2nd-most-played character. As he is right now, I found myself cycling around honey ham, meatballs, and meaty stew...you know, pretty much the same thing I'd do as any other survivor. 

[Pig Princess]

I want to comment on my seemingly controversal pick of Wendy as a character with one of the most intense downside and at the same time one with the most fun to play around downside (I've also chosen Wormwood for both, and it's no coincidence).

I saw a lot of people claimed that Wendy's (biggest) downside is 0.75x damage to shadows, and that it's quite severe, etc. I also saw different claims that Wendy's supposed downside is 0.75x damage in general, usually followed by expression of dissatisfaction about how rarely it's seen due to Abigail's vex. However, I can't agree with the first position because better candidate exists and damage to shadows is not as severe as it may look to some people; the second take just differs to my vision of what Wendy is supposed to be as a character, and both positions miss the point of what is the biggest existing downside of character and what it's supposed to achieve.

It's actually Abigail's fragility in some of the tougher boss battles and necessity to managment her, which demands more managment skill in general from player, brings more risk and harder recovering from mistakes, sometimes it forces player to bring different gear and use different approach and it can't be just avoided without bringing another downside. I also view Wendy not as "weaker Wilson with "extra" in other situations", but as duo character, so extra managment is valid and fair downside and should not be diminished by any means. While it's a downside, I really enjoy the fact that I just can't resource dump (at least not in a way that would preserve character identity), that I have to reshape my gameplay around it and that at no point it feels like I overcame it and can just pretend to be Wilson. Unfortunally, as much as I would like all parts of Wendy's gameplay be like fights with Armored Bearger, Crystal Deerclops, Celestial Champion, Nightmare/Scrappy Werepig, Ancient Fuelweaver, Ancient Guardian (no vigor mortis), tier 3 Shadow Bishop and a bunch of bosses/boss versions if we count Uncompromising Mode (that I had a lot of fun playing recently), there are things like Bee Queen, Dragonfly, Crab King, Antlion, most of the battles with regular mobs that just don't feel like I'm doing anything different, that I put much effort into managing, or it just breaks AI of the mob/boss (Toadstool, Ink Blights, Antlion), and it's just not interesting because of this. As much as I would like my favourite gameplay to be present during all or at least most encounters, I have to admit that current situation is not a perfect state for a downside.

What I like about playing around downside is not grindiness or extra suffering. I like downside when it encourages me to play differently, and it's especially good if there is not a single workaround, but multiple ways to diversify gameplay. It's also good when efficiency of playing around downside depends on player skill, and doesn't boil down to just spending extra resources, or to "pass/fail" binary outcome. For example, Wormwood in Hamlet is not interesting (to me), because instead of cooking multiple healing dishes and working with various ingredient he has to resort to bying healing items at spa shop, and that's it - his only salvation. There is no bat bat in hamlet, glands are comically scarce to the point that bying salves is far more available option even with randomness of shop offers, honey poultices are extra grindy because of alteraction of honey production chain and sailing required to pick reeds (and no free papyrus from sketches like in DST). Tents are garbage because they skip day. Wormwood has practically no interactions with fertilisers, the only exception being manure, buchet-o-poop and his signature fertilizer (yes, no rot healing). There are also less fertilizers than in DST to interact with even ignoring non-healing purposes. Manure is quite uncommon or requires significant deviation in gameplay that is tangential to the rest of the game to produce a lot of it, and impractical to heal with, and it would be good case to use bucket-o-poop and compost wrap... if bone shards and nitre were not extra scarce, on par with glands. In RoG glands are very available, and I struggle to give an example of just as scarce resource in RoG/DST for people who didn't play Hamlet to understand. Beard hair? Cookie cutter shells? Fruits with 1.0 value in crock pot? Melted marbles from ruins clearing as an ammo, especially if Walter only could use those as ammo? So essentially Wormwood trades diversity of dishes and ingredient managment for the boring oinc drainage that doesn't add anything different to the gameplay, while having 1.5 ways to mitigate his downside (shop; tent in ultra lategame where wasting day is not a big deal). The problem is not that Wormwood has diffuculties in healing (availability in general), or healing of him being slow. The problem with his downside in Hamlet is that there is not much approaches player can take, not much can be done to facilitate production outside of linking world to other DLC's so not much skill expression, existing ways are more of it's own contained thing (and not very efficient one anyway) that can't realistically be tied to the rest of the content, and the existing approach is the only option left, which also doesn't alter Wormwood gameplay: he buys healing exactly like the rest of the surviviours can and makes money in exact same way, and interacts with shop in exact same way. So essentially situation feels like player is powerless to even try do do something, is loosing on crockpot diversity interaction and doesn't gain any interesting content instead. Compare that to DST Wormwood which is just so much better in concept. Not only RoG map has normal availability of non-food healing - glands, silk, even reeds, and honey, also bat bat exists - not only RoG map has more available crafting ingredients that have unique significance for Wormwood - nitre, manure (through werepigs, but beefalos are also ok), - DST specifically has rot, compost, jellybeans, it's tents are better, fertilizers in DST has non-healing uses for Wormwood and fertilizers production is not so out of the way, it's tied to other content like sailing and some ways of farm plot farming. Does Wormwood still has a downside? Yes, absolutely. Are there enough options to choose from to do something about it? Yes. Does Wormwood gain something out of playing around downside instead of just extra suffering? Yes, absolutely, it's alternative chunk of content for him/unique interactions and it's great. Even if he had no upsides DST version of downside does it's job amazingly to distinguish him from other characters and bring unique experience for the player.

So how does all this relate to Wendy and in what way is she similar? Fragility of Abigail is something player can play around. However, it doesn't boil down to pouring spectral cure-all on her and tanking as Wendy, although it's a viable "panic button" in a lot of cases; instead much more resource-efficient approach is to develop alternative strategy, often taking into account positionng, often with other elixirs such as vigor mortis and small healing (for occasional hits; it's a big difference compared to big heal elixir). Did anybody know that for some reason Armored Bearger targets Abigail much more if Wendy uses enlightened crown compared to void cowl, for example? My best guess is that gestalts from random direction interfere, or maybe it influences Bearger decision on when to switch aggro somehow, I'm not sure (but I even recorded the fights for myself to exclude perception distortion). Extra speed of Abigail requires Wendy to have more than cane (usually cane + magi) to make use of it, but is also useful in combination with "attack at" command to return to the target earlier instead of avoiding it like in most common use case. Extra speed might be undesirable like in Nightmare Werepig fight and dodging jump of Ancient Guardian, in some variants of Crystal Deerclops fight. Enraged mode can be used so Abigail doesn't sit on top of enemy but rather stays at her maximum attack range, meaning Twins of Terror don't actually hit her with charge so long as they charge away from her. My point is that there are tools Wendy can use (elixirs, Team Spirit commands, even weather pain in some spicific cases) when it comes to survivability and elixir/planning around when it comes to damage, so there are things to choose from to work around fragility and to maximise utility, and none of them is powerful enough so no managment from player is needed, in most cases Wendy has things to choose from so best strategy is not to just unsummon Abigail, and most tools themselves are interesting to play with and have subtle aspects to them. The system is far from perfect though: sometimes even with existing tools there is just not much to play around, like nightshade nostrum - it holds solely because of Abigail's fragility solid foundation when it comes to bosses. Sometimes it's just not worth it to manage Abigail anyway (some seasonal bosses), and point is not that they are hard (they are not), but that there is no practical way to do them with Abigail, which is the whole point of playing as Wendy. Shield elixirs are in pathetic state; ability to withstand burst damage boils down to placing petals in sisturn/using big heal elixir, and there is nothing interesting to play around the situation. Skill tree fails like 50% of the time: team spirit is mostly good, shadow affinity elixir is mechanically interesting but weak, but lunar affinity as a whole has buried potential, and shadow affinity and the rest of the tree is just boring and has exactly one way to use it, often grindy and too weak to make a difference, often plaqued with anti-QoL like holding critters in the inventory or summoning krampii, and it's used as justification that skill is not even weaker, as some sort of obligatory real life suffering tax. Mouring glory section is just complete out of character bs and even aside from this it doesn't add anything to Wendy being mechanically interesting. But I didn't write it to shift the topic to skill tree, I just want to show that I acknowledge major flaws and developer words such as "we are happy with skill tree" make me want to vomit by how much it misses the point of character, particularly because of how it handles Wendy's downside.

So returning to downside, i.e. necessity to manage. I think key point is to not eliminate it on any character, and it's not a proper downside either when some item or skill just cancells it, like bone helm for Wickerbottom/Maxwell. Good downside is the one where it's actually interesting to play around it and experience it, not avoid it. It's great when tools that player has are not just buffs, but something player can take a great advantage of, but also leave plenty of space for player to screw everything, like team spirit commands (positioning) and most of Wendy's elixirs. Like Wormwood's fertilizers, speed, living logs production and AoE from bramble/brambleshade husk/bramble traps. Good tool is the one that also is not one-dimentional, like "more damage" or "more speed". More damage/speed can be good so long as it's not just a checkbox for player to have some equipment, it's good when it requires to do something different than usual to reap full benefit, it's good when it counters respective downsides of less damage/speed when player puts an effort, be in mechanical skill, planning skill or coming up with unconventional setups. In case Abigail, Abigail's vex and vigor mortis are exactly as good as they are because they have conditions that are possible and practical to play around, and they are not one-dimensional, like nightshade nostrum or Blessed Sisturn III/ghastly experience. That being said, if Abigail, say, had maximum of 150 health, or could not use elixirs, or was uncontrollable, or something alone those lines, it would be horrible downside. Do I need to explain why? Do I need to explain why pre-rework Abigail was incomparably less interesting than now overall, and would be still worse even if she dealt 200 damage AoE?

There is also "meta" downside of Wendy as a character when it comes to learning the game: she is good at aiding players early in their learning of the game, she has good skill ceiling for experienced players, but there is abyss in between and character kit doesn't really help first group become the second; it happens in spite character kit, not thanks to it. So medium-skilled players have little to gain from Wendy, and her gameplay for newbies and experienced players is so vastly different, that absence of middle ground makes it almost like 2 different characters depending on who is playing as Wendy. Something in the middle that would still combine relatively good survivability of both sisters, but introduce player to tougher fights with less mechanical skill required and less reward is missing. No, gestalt Abigail doesn't do the job, she would not be suitable even if she could perfectly evade all boss attacks without managment from player, because "no managment required" doesn't naturally lead to being better at managment. Extra options that would require substitution of some mechanical skill for planning skill (extra commands/elixirs with their own upsides and downsides) would help, but alas.

[Mysterious box]

2 hours ago, _mylilsunshine_ said:

No poll for which character has the most unfun downsides to play around? If there is I would vote for Warly

Agreed Warly is a character that wants variety but the game's food balance is setup in such a way that trying to use variety feels tedious and unrewarding which is a real shame.

[GrapeVruit]

4 minutes ago, Mysterious box said:

Agreed Warly is a character that wants variety but the game's food balance is setup in such a way that trying to use variety feels tedious and unrewarding which is a real shame.

It felt like this downside worked better in Shipwrecked, as you got 33% more hunger from eating crockpot foods, making even low hunger foods like California Rolls or Fish Gumbo give a nominal amount of hunger back. I wish he got that mechanic back for eating low hunger foods or something. 

[Mysterious box]

2 minutes ago, GrapeVruit said:

It felt like this downside worked better in Shipwrecked, as you got 33% more hunger from eating crockpot foods, making even low hunger foods like California Rolls or Fish Gumbo give a nominal amount of hunger back. I wish he got that mechanic back for eating low hunger foods or something. 

I'm not really sure that's enough I think a better balance in the stats the average dish gives you would go a lot further.

[hyoton123]

i’m with everyone about warly. It isnt even an occasional strength like wick’s insomnia or walter’s pain insanity, and crockpot only is a huge food lockout.

 

EDIT: also I didnt realize this til now but his hunger drains faster than normal? lmao?!

[WilsonHiggs]

4 minutes ago, GrapeVruit said:

It felt like this downside worked better in Shipwrecked, as you got 33% more hunger from eating crockpot foods, making even low hunger foods like California Rolls or Fish Gumbo give a nominal amount of hunger back. I wish he got that mechanic back for eating low hunger foods or something. 

This was discussed several times. That boost makes no sense because with the current warly you are already not having a hard enough penalty by repeating a dish 2 or 3 times 

Your suggestion only makes sense if repeating a dish lowers the stats by 50% 

[GrapeVruit]

21 minutes ago, WilsonHiggs said:

This was discussed several times. That boost makes no sense because with the current warly you are already not having a hard enough penalty by repeating a dish 2 or 3 times 

Your suggestion only makes sense if repeating a dish lowers the stats by 50% 

That's why I said FELT. They'll probably figure something out, that's just what came to mind in my own SW playthroughs.

[Mrloxi]

Warly's a difficult one to decide. While i love the idea (force the player to eat a varied diet rather than just spamming one dish), in practice it completely fails to accomplish this, and just rewards spamming 2 meaty stews every now and then. It still prevents you from spamming the same sanity/healing food during bossfights though, which does affect gameplay quite a lot, and being unable to eat glommer goop or green caps to lower enlightenment is a rarely-acknowledged aspect of the downside that makes fighting CC quite difficult. I wish he had some way around this that wasn't just "waste an equipment slot on the bone helm or nightmare amulets"

[Guille6785]

I feel like a certain subset of the DST community successfully managed to gaslight itself and others that there was once this magical time where every character had these brutal uncompromising downsides that had to be considered when picking them and that the reworks and skill trees got rid of them when this was literally never the case, downsides have always served as flavor things at best and annoyances at worst

[Walrusst]

Downsides usually were something you could beat by changing your basing habits by one to three screens in old don't starve.

I don't think annoyance is the right word unless you are extremely inflexible in heart, its more like they slightly re-contextualize the game and make new parts of it interesting.

Since, webber people forget sort of came out at a time where it was really common practice for people to use stuff like the pig village to protect themselves from hound waves, losing access to a wide range of friendly and useful allies and gaining new friends elsewhere is what made webber interesting. (Even if the intent was to make it feel like the pigs were never truly your minion or friend, it still sort of plays out like that due to how similar the things that aggro on pigs are to what aggros on players.)
My opinions on downside intensity are going to be a bit strange but its based on watching around 8 total newbies play the game and commit suicide. Characters whose surprises were more consistently lethal to my newbies I rated as intense, since, well...

People who can play the game often are flexible enough to not worry as much about downsides that are short of a full insanity rework for a single character.

[JaxckLl]

8 hours ago, Cheggf said:

I don't think question 2 has one answer. I think there should be characters for all aspects of that. While I feel like most characters could do with some more notable downsides than they do right now (Most of them are practically nonexistent and most people I've seen literally do not even know what the downsides are supposed to be) not all of them need to be equally intense. Characters like Warly and Wormwood should naturally have stricter downsides than, say, Willow and Woodie, and obviously Wilson should never have any. 

I agree with your statement, but Woodie is a really odd include. He has a huge downside in how his transformations work with the full moon. Nothing is worse than getting yet another Goose form when you're trying to do something at base.

[Evelo]

Downsides makes the game fun. More downsides plz.

[gaymime]

i voted "warly" for the most intense downsides but in truth i simply haven't played most of the survivours and don't actually know who has it the "worst". of the ones i have tried (wes, wurt, wormwood, warly, wortox, wigfrid, wilson, willow and wendy) he had the one with the sharpest learning curve simply because i couldnt live off of seeds for the first few days which is simply how i operate and it has been the only time i have been -encouraged- to use use greencaps as filler instead of a sanity buff/drain

 

as for the first question? of course it does. whether the player recognises it or not the survivours each have ways to play that make the game less smooth and more abrading so as you play you learn where to avoid things or to lean in to things for a more optimal experience. unless what you are cataloguing is the people who do not recognise gameplay manipulation when it happens i am not really sure what the purpose of that question is....

[FillerText]

I don't think Wormwood's downside is that major, but I think it's fun simply because it recontextualizes the game. It makes you view many otherwise dull interactions under a new light.

Upsides can also achieve the same effect, but run the risk of detracting from gameplay due to making various interactions simply feel shallow, or skippable. the gist of things is that a fun strong character just follows the "easy to pick up, hard to master" formula.

Spoiler

I really like Wheeler(although I am not advocating for her specifically to be added.) due to the opportunity cost to one of her main upsides recontextualizing how you interact with the world. It makes you wonder whether something is actually worth picking it up, or if it will meaninglessly slow you down. Playing her is a constant inventory sorting minigame, that breaks up the routine in a very fun way. Making her gameplay feel incredibly distinct from other survivors in comparison to Wolfgang's relatively uninteractive damage boost, or WX-78's big stats that simply make them better. Her Pew-matic horn is a ranged weapon, and therefore has all the benefits a ranged weapon provides without being locked behind insane crafting costs or being clunky. I personally like that she can destroy brambles without being bothered by their prickly nature, despite most other characters also being able to do that by burning grass under them. Lastly, her slide is very obviously overpowered, but in a fun way. Letting you explore the map much faster, ignore slowdowns, and get cheeky extra hits on enemies. She is a character defined mostly by upsides that make her very easy to play for new players, but her full potential is unlocked by someone who's learnt how to play her. I repeat that this isn't about Wheeler as much as just using her as an example of how a strong pure upsides character can be really fun to play. They just need to sufficiently reward skill while still being a great pick for beginners.

Now, I am not so sure about the rest of what is written, but I have found DST Maxwell to be particularly boring, because there is no question regarding whether you want to utilize his spells or not. The answer is almost always yes due to the minimal cost for them. The use cases for his spells are incredibly obvious, and I find myself hard pressed to find creative things to do with it. I often felt as if I am skipping important things most other survivors have to deal with when it comes to combat as him. DST also very rarely actually force you not to use some form of armor for his Health penalty to matter as much.

I think Maxwell in dst is a strong character with little downsides, that is easy to pick up. But I feel as if he doesn't reward better players any more than a new player. Which is something I strongly wish his skill tree addresses, as I think he has potential to be a very fun survivor. I hope Klei will not be afraid of moments similiar to a new player joining, picking Walter, dying, then quitting due to being unable to manage his downsides in favor of reintroducing things like utilizing powerful magic, but at a big price. I feel as if his rework making him more paletable for newer players has sacrificed a lot of things I found to be interesting about him. I believe that things inspired by his former base kit would mesh really well with a skill tree. And a bit controversial, but I think there should be more situations that force you to take off your armor, and risk taking unarmored damage. It would make the difference in health between survivors matter a little more.

 

Downsides aren't necessary to make a fun character, while upsides don't make a character more boring. Willow was always boring to me with or without her downsides. While I would probably have fun as Wormwood even if he didn't have any upsides.

[YouKnowWho142]

Honestly, part of why I love wormwood so much is because of his downsides. His inability to heal from food can be an be taken advantage of at times by letting you eat food that would’ve damaged you, and not healing from food lets you utilize all sorts of healing methods you probably wouldn’t have bothered with before. I really do wish more characters had interesting downsides since a really interesting downside can be just as interesting and fun to me as an upside

[Gashzer]

Come on lads, Wormwoods "downside" is not a downside. This hungry plant boi can chug down raw monster meat like no tomorrow, wormwood not gaining or losing health from food is a net upside. 

Wormwood still can heal with tents, healing salves and honey poultice like everyone else AND then gains an extra unspoilable way to heal with compost wrap. Its easier to heal wormwood than it is to heal Wilson due to the bramble husk wormwood can tank kill hordes of spiders for a net gain of healing salves and silk for tents.

Even pre-skill tree i found myself with an abundance of food and healing as wormwood... 

[YouKnowWho142]

15 minutes ago, Gashzer said:

Come on lads, Wormwoods "downside" is not a downside. This hungry plant boi can chug down raw monster meat like no tomorrow, wormwood not gaining or losing health from food is a net upside. 

Wormwood still can heal with tents, healing salves and honey poultice like everyone else AND then gains an extra unspoilable way to heal with compost wrap. Its easier to heal wormwood than it is to heal Wilson due to the bramble husk wormwood can tank kill hordes of spiders for a net gain of healing salves and silk for tents.

Even pre-skill tree i found myself with an abundance of food and healing as wormwood... 

it isn’t that healing isn’t abundant for wormwood, it’s that the easiest option isn’t available to him and he’s incentivized to explore other options