[Poll] On Character Downsides

[Evelo]

1 hour ago, YouKnowWho142 said:

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

Precisely why I love wormwood (and wanda to a lesser extent) so much. Not being able to heal from food changes the game dramatically.

[Crimson Hollow]

11 hours 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.

He's got an intense downside but not nearly enough upside to balance it out...

[Cheggf]

8 hours ago, JaxckLl said:

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.

Woodie's downside is once every 3 hours if you happen to be on the surface during a period of what's usually 1-2 minutes (3 at the most) you'll transform into something that you might not want so you need to hold still for like 20 seconds or something to get out of it. It can be dodged entirely by not being on the surface, briefly hiding in a bush hat or snurtle armor (unless they fixed this?), or taking the skill in the skill tree where this is just removed entirely. The addition of moonstorms made his downside much more prevalent, but they also added the skill tree which has a skill to literally just remove the downside entirely.

Woodie definitely does have a downside, unlike some characters, but it isn't very impactful. 

[Szczuku]

Downsides are an important part of an enjoyable gameplay imo

Playing as Wormwood, Wanda, Wurt or Warly is much more fun and interesting than playing Wolfgang, Wendy or Wickerbottom

[Radicaljoe]

I've always felt the downside of playing X character is that I couldn't be doing something easier as Y character.

Like, Woodie is pretty well rounded and one of my favorites because of that. But I also like Wormwood. So the tradeoff of playing Woodie is that I can't have free light from shine bugs or constant speed bloom but I get tons of boards and a great combat form.

Flipside, playing Wormwood I lose out on lots of easy boards, and healing food, but I can plant so much food it will probably rot before I finish it all, be constantly speedy bloomed, make living logs, and even make bramble armor.

 

Also, the hardest downside is Warly. Not because it's difficult to eat 2 meaty stews every 2 days, but because it's a horribly boring and tedious downside. The difficulty comes from wanting to continue playing Warly after only eating the same foods forever. 

I see the idea klei was going for with his downside, but I don't think they properly achieved it. I feel the intention was to make Warly eat many foods, but so many crockpot recipes are terrible to make, so it's significantly easier to just tank the repeat meal debuff multiple times and wait out the timer and repeat it again. Also wandering chef my ass, culinary school and all you can make yourself is 11 recipes? There's a whole new fruit added like 7 months ago and Warly can't use it because it's not a dish. I get that for wigfrid, but Warly (the nightmare fuel pie guy) should have been able to figure out a recipe using it. 

 

[Bumber64]

9 hours 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.

*Laughs in Webber*

• Doesn't even lose sanity from raw MM.
• Gets the spiders to kill each other instead of crafting husk.
• Unlimited sleeping in any spider den (upgrade to T3 with silk).

And a downside so inconsequential that they gave it to Wortox on top of another one, despite Wortox not having his own minions.

Webber kind of makes Wormwood look like a Wilson, except for moon shroom cloud. (Webber doesn't have his tree yet, though.)

[Gashzer]

9 hours ago, YouKnowWho142 said:

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

Unpopular opinion but healing salves are the easiest option and are available to him.

8 hours ago, Evelo said:

Precisely why I love wormwood (and wanda to a lesser extent) so much. Not being able to heal from food changes the game dramatically.

Crockpot food for healing is hugely overrated, since playing DST from beta 11 years ago, healing salves have always been the better choice because they don't spoil. Jellybeans are the best source of crockpot healing and wormwood can use that so his downside is very overstated by people.

Warly has by far the worst downside, followed by Wendy and wes (0.75x damage to nightmare creatures is brutal for both these characters)

18 minutes ago, Bumber64 said:

*Laughs in Webber*

• Doesn't even lose the sanity from raw MM.
• Gets the spiders to kill each other instead of crafting husk.
• Unlimited sleeping in any spider den (upgrade to T3 with silk).

And a downside so inconsequential that they gave it to Wortox on top of another one, despite Wortox not having his own minions.

Webber kind of makes Wormwood look like a Wilson, except for moon shroom cloud. (Webber doesn't have his tree yet, though.)

Webber has nothing on wormwood: bramble husk, unlimited dark swords and bloom speed boost, Pre-skilltree wormwood walks all over Webber.

Wormwood has always been one of the best combat characters in the game due to easy access to magic gear, speed and being one of the few characters from the start to have AOE damage. And he's one of the easiest to heal because of his AoE and compost wrap and able to rush bat bat.

You should never ever ever farm crops as wormwood unless you are farming for a team.

[Bumber64]

14 minutes ago, Gashzer said:

Webber has nothing on wormwood: bramble husk, unlimited dark swords and bloom speed boost, Pre-skilltree wormwood walks all over Webber.

Other than shattered/spitter spiders and nurses, of course. Free AoE/ranged damage as long as they don't die. (So no Toadstool or CC, basically.)

[Evelo]

8 hours ago, Gashzer said:

Crockpot food for healing is hugely overrated, since playing DST from beta 11 years ago, healing salves have always been the better choice because they don't spoil.

To each their own. Just the passive healing from food goes a long way. Then if you need a burst of healing in a pinch when you prep for a fight Wobster Bisque is insane. Salves/Poultice are great yeah, but they aren't passive, well Poultice are nowadays with Monkey Tails.

8 hours ago, Gashzer said:

Jellybeans are the best source of crockpot healing

Which requires farming the Bee Queen en masse which is quite the investment.

8 hours ago, Gashzer said:

Warly has by far the worst downside

I would agree however, just treat him like Wormwood/Wanda and boom, no real downside.

8 hours ago, Gashzer said:

followed by Wendy and wes (0.75x damage to nightmare creatures is brutal for both these characters)

True, however the majority of people I am aware of just use a Beefalo to negate the downsides. For everyone, not just those two. (I hate beefalo)

8 hours ago, Gashzer said:

You should never ever ever farm crops as wormwood unless you are farming for a team.

You should never ever ever tell people what to do. Let them play how they want, so long as they aren't exploiting the game. If they want to farm let them farm.

Wait a minute, weren't you banned from the forums some time ago?

[Hollow soul 3]

I dislike that Wortox's downside is that his teleport still sucks on console

[Frosty_Mentos]

I think when character downsides are introduced and there's ways to deal with them it's fine. When the downside is extreme then you start to question as to 'why' you are playing that character or staying away from them. Let's say Wes as example: everything to stay away from is Wes. Unless you just wanna do it for the challenge then sure, toil and suffer through. But there's generally a lot of positives for your brain to think more on your next moves and how to deal with not dealing enough damage or getting assistance in chopping stuff, or using common used tools explosives, beefalo for speed and health etc to bring you on a similar level to other base level characters.

A downside can be attractive as the character too, as long as it makes sense.

[Gashzer]

55 minutes ago, Evelo said:

I would agree however, just treat him like Wormwood/Wanda and boom, no real downside.

Wanda doesn't have a downside. It's more like to access her full strength you need to put yourself at risk but young Wanda with alarming clock has no downside and still is really strong. 

Wormwood is nothing like Warly. Warly requires constant effort to get around his downside at all stages of the game, Wormwood has all the tools needed to get around his "downside" AoE bramble husk for farming spider glands/silk and compost wrap. Warly has a crock pot but you have a 20% hunger penalty always so you need to actively get more food forever and using repeated dishes just amplifies the problem.

1 hour ago, Evelo said:

Wait a minute, weren't you banned from the forums some time ago?

Also important to note, Klei unbanned me earlier than the set ban time cause I give absolutely awesome feedback; for proof, just look at the Walter skilltree 

[Hollow soul 3]

Just now, Gashzer said:

Wanda doesn't have a downside. It's more like to access her full strength you need to put yourself at risk but young Wanda with alarming clock has no downside and still is really strong. 

Wormwood is nothing like Warly. Warly requires constant effort to get around his downside at all stages of the game, Wormwood has all the tools needed to get around his "downside" AoE bramble husk for farming spider glands/silk and compost wrap. Warly has a crock pot but you have a 20% hunger penalty always so you need to actively get more food forever and using repeated dishes just amplifies the problem.

Also important to note, Klei unbanned me earlier than the set ban time cause I give absolutely awesome feedback; for proof, just look at the Walter skilltree 

Wanda has a weird balance. Her healing is stronger usually than food over time, so her lack of traditional healing methods (while still a technical downside) is trivialized. She gets hot and cold faster when she's old. Small trade offs for huge potential. Balanced.

[Evelo]

11 minutes ago, Gashzer said:

for proof, just look at the Walter skilltree

An annoying amalgam of power creep and adding new crafts to the character instead of giving crafts baseline with talents being passive bonuses? Yeah great proof...

Side note, Wormwood Skill tree is poorly balanced, most skill trees are as they are just removing the interesting parts of the game in favor of everyone becoming a combat menace in a game with a boring combat system.

[Hollow soul 3]

2 minutes ago, Evelo said:

An annoying amalgam of power creep and adding new crafts to the character instead of giving crafts baseline with talents not being passive bonuses? Yeah great proof...

Side note, Wormwood Skill tree is poorly balanced, most skill trees are as they are just removing the interesting parts of the game in favor of everyone becoming a combat menace in a game with a boring combat system.

Yeah, the weapons are pretty uninspired for the most part. Not enough diversity, only number changes. The mobs are a little better, but still pretty limited. 

With that in mind, giving everyone combat options will open up the game to fix that. It would such if they added interesting encounters but you're playing a character that can't meet the challenge effectively.

[Jakepeng99]

On 3/28/2025 at 6:23 PM, JaxckLl said:

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.

I dislike this opinion and believe it has no truth.

[Gashzer]

Quote

An annoying amalgam of power creep and adding new crafts to the character instead of giving crafts baseline with talents being passive bonuses? Yeah great proof...

Side note, Wormwood Skill tree is poorly balanced, most skill trees are as they are just removing the interesting parts of the game in favor of everyone becoming a combat menace in a game with a boring combat system

@EveloWhy would making crafts baseline be better when a lot of Walter's crafts come with changes to gameplay mechanics and/or passive bonuses? Slingshot frames have AoE alt fire and charged manual shot, ramping firerate grips verses regular firerate increases, portable campfire- bonus to storyline, field medic- flutter strip + 50% healing boost.

Walter's many new crafts all come with massive gameplay changes attached, giving them baseline would mean he gain every single gameplay change, taking away from player's choices in skills having a significant gameplay impact. Which would be bad game design.

Absolutely everyone is loving the new Walter, also bramble trap specialist was my suggested idea for wormwood which also lead to bramble husk specialist... so you can thank me for the few good skills wormwood did get... maybe if I was as emotionally invested in wormwood as I was Walter, wormwood would have got an awesome skilltree too  

[Guille6785]

On 3/29/2025 at 2:29 PM, Evelo said:

An annoying amalgam of power creep

making previously pointless items into viable alternative playstyles isn't power creep

[Wawchik]

On 3/29/2025 at 10:29 PM, Evelo said:

most skill trees are as they are just removing the interesting parts of the game

Give an example 

[Evelo]

1 hour ago, Wawchik said:

Give an example 

Wilson: Giving the ability to transmute, making his character a candidate for a "swap character" which is a mechanic I and some others believe is unhealthy for the longevity of the game; His beard insulation increase makes the challenge of winter even less of a challenge given how much more it is.

Willow: Skills that allow her major downside of needing to be insane for bernie to become active to 50% sanity or while near Lunar/Shadow creatures.

Wolfgang: Well he's always been uninteresting to me so no comment.

Wendy: One of the few skill trees that doesn't just remove her downside (Abigail's Survival and 25% reduced damage done). You can increase Abby's Survival, at a cost!

Woodie: Ability to remove the only downside Woodie had which is forced Wereform during Full Moon (even though it wasn't a big deal cause you can just stand still to let it drain fast); Added the Treeguard Spawn Totem which allowed for stupid easy cheese strats.

Wigfrid: Skills dedicated to using a Beefalo, something that (I consider) is already over powered and ruined the balance of the game when introduced.

Wormwood: Regenerating HP in Sunlight, Insanely over powered Moon Shroom sleep bomb, Bramble Husk activation every 3rd hit, "swap character" skills in the bottom left branch.

Winona: Infinite Reusable resurrect anytime, anywhere.

Wortox: The majority of the Nice Tree is useless for Solo play.

Wurt: All Weather Scales reduces her downside of the penalties of being wet (though I guess thematically it makes sense); HUGE buffs to Merms which already trivialized the game if massed enough.

Walter: Dramatically increased the rate of acquisition for ammo (frankly a good thing); added easy to acquire and extremely powerful ammo; Though his slingshot made him distinct is diminished significantly by how trivial and simple the over all combat is in the game, making him a stupid easy character against the majority of creatures and bosses.

But hey, these are just my opinions. I find adversity really fun. DST is just becoming easier without adding new challenges. (Really hope that changes. I quite enjoyed the addition of the Greater Depths Worm, creatures that actively Hunt you is AWESOME!)

[Wawchik]

40 minutes ago, Evelo said:

Wilson: Giving the ability to transmute, making his character a candidate for a "swap character" which is a mechanic I and some others believe is unhealthy for the longevity of the game; His beard insulation increase makes the challenge of winter even less of a challenge given how much more it is.

Willow: Skills that allow her major downside of needing to be insane for bernie to become active to 50% sanity or while near Lunar/Shadow creatures.

Wolfgang: Well he's always been uninteresting to me so no comment.

Wendy: One of the few skill trees that doesn't just remove her downside (Abigail's Survival and 25% reduced damage done). You can increase Abby's Survival, at a cost!

Woodie: Ability to remove the only downside Woodie had which is forced Wereform during Full Moon (even though it wasn't a big deal cause you can just stand still to let it drain fast); Added the Treeguard Spawn Totem which allowed for stupid easy cheese strats.

Wigfrid: Skills dedicated to using a Beefalo, something that (I consider) is already over powered and ruined the balance of the game when introduced.

Wormwood: Regenerating HP in Sunlight, Insanely over powered Moon Shroom sleep bomb, Bramble Husk activation every 3rd hit, "swap character" skills in the bottom left branch.

Winona: Infinite Reusable resurrect anytime, anywhere.

Wortox: The majority of the Nice Tree is useless for Solo play.

Wurt: All Weather Scales reduces her downside of the penalties of being wet (though I guess thematically it makes sense); HUGE buffs to Merms which already trivialized the game if massed enough.

Walter: Dramatically increased the rate of acquisition for ammo (frankly a good thing); added easy to acquire and extremely powerful ammo; Though his slingshot made him distinct is diminished significantly by how trivial and simple the over all combat is in the game, making him a stupid easy character against the majority of creatures and bosses.

But hey, these are just my opinions. I find adversity really fun. DST is just becoming easier without adding new challenges. (Really hope that changes. I quite enjoyed the addition of the Greater Depths Worm, creatures that actively Hunt you is AWESOME!)

I don't know why you're convinced that downside = fun, which just isn't true, but your examples are wrong or just don't matter because what you describe does not make characters less fun

[Guille6785]

 

On 3/29/2025 at 2:29 PM, Evelo said:

most skill trees are as they are just removing the interesting parts of the game

1 hour ago, Evelo said:

 

you wrote a lot of words just to not list a single example of a skill tree removing an interesting part of the game

[Evelo]

1 hour ago, Wawchik said:

I don't know why you're convinced that downside = fun, which just isn't true, but your examples are wrong or just don't matter because what you describe does not make characters less fun

fun=subjective   subjective=opinion     "But hey, these are just my opinions. I find adversity really fun."     Learn to read. Sorry that was rude. I find having to play around downsides to be really enjoyable to the core experience of Don't Starve. Removing that really makes all characters feel the same to me even if they have different traits to set them apart. I don't want everyone to be Wilson+ I want Wilson +/-.

[YouKnowWho142]

2 hours ago, Evelo said:

Wilson: Giving the ability to transmute, making his character a candidate for a "swap character" which is a mechanic I and some others believe is unhealthy for the longevity of the game; His beard insulation increase makes the challenge of winter even less of a challenge given how much more it is.

Willow: Skills that allow her major downside of needing to be insane for bernie to become active to 50% sanity or while near Lunar/Shadow creatures.

Wolfgang: Well he's always been uninteresting to me so no comment.

Wendy: One of the few skill trees that doesn't just remove her downside (Abigail's Survival and 25% reduced damage done). You can increase Abby's Survival, at a cost!

Woodie: Ability to remove the only downside Woodie had which is forced Wereform during Full Moon (even though it wasn't a big deal cause you can just stand still to let it drain fast); Added the Treeguard Spawn Totem which allowed for stupid easy cheese strats.

Wigfrid: Skills dedicated to using a Beefalo, something that (I consider) is already over powered and ruined the balance of the game when introduced.

Wormwood: Regenerating HP in Sunlight, Insanely over powered Moon Shroom sleep bomb, Bramble Husk activation every 3rd hit, "swap character" skills in the bottom left branch.

Winona: Infinite Reusable resurrect anytime, anywhere.

Wortox: The majority of the Nice Tree is useless for Solo play.

Wurt: All Weather Scales reduces her downside of the penalties of being wet (though I guess thematically it makes sense); HUGE buffs to Merms which already trivialized the game if massed enough.

Walter: Dramatically increased the rate of acquisition for ammo (frankly a good thing); added easy to acquire and extremely powerful ammo; Though his slingshot made him distinct is diminished significantly by how trivial and simple the over all combat is in the game, making him a stupid easy character against the majority of creatures and bosses.

But hey, these are just my opinions. I find adversity really fun. DST is just becoming easier without adding new challenges. (Really hope that changes. I quite enjoyed the addition of the Greater Depths Worm, creatures that actively Hunt you is AWESOME!)

Generally I believe that the skill trees have made the singleplayer experience significantly more fun, more aoe in the game is controversial but I’m happy to live in a time where I don’t need weather pains anymore. It also just lets characters be more expressive in combat situations (some characters definitely more than others), which has undeniably been a focus of the game especially recently. I just think skill trees are a big problem for multiplayer since the power scaling with one another is way higher that way. The game’s new focus in singleplayer oriented content is sort of its own issue and the underlying issue with skill trees in my opinion (seriously, my friends typically just sit back and watch me fight newer bosses like werepig since they feel punished for getting involved)

also I know you hate character items in skill trees, but I believe that character items are perks (good examples are codex, jimmy, wicker’s books, even simpler items like battle helms, lighter, bramble husk, etc). Therefore, if skill trees are to add new perks, I don’t really have an issue with the character perks being in the form of items

As far as the removal of downsides go I actually think the character refreshes were the issue, not necessarily skills trees. Most of the character refreshes really diluted downsides or removed them outright, and while the skill tree is guilty of downside removal it doesn’t usually touch core downsides (except woodie, though he’s the one case where I’m fine with it since he’s basically non functional during moonstorms otherwise and I think something needed to be done about that. A smarter way imo would’ve been an unlocking an amulet like wilba with the lunar skill)

[Evelo]

6 minutes ago, YouKnowWho142 said:

As far as the removal of downsides go I actually think the character refreshes were the issue, not necessarily skills trees. Most of the character refreshes really diluted downsides or removed them outright

Oh 100% agree with that. Woodie's downside was gutted, I loved having to regulate tree chopping from DS. Then it became the issue of full moons only. Now... well you can skip that. Just wish there were more Lumberjack skills. I think of Woodie as a Lumberjack first, cursed were dude second. Loved woodie before. :c But I know his downside was kind of contentious so whatevs. I can't change anything but I sure can whine about it :P