Would you perfer if wes is an actual playable character?

[Edible Coal]

6 minutes ago, lovegrooove said:

A bad player (at least in my definition) is somebody that stands in base, eats the fridge, and keeps asking for twigs and grass, because they're too lazy or scared to walk to the next door biome, in order to collect it themselves. They stand there doing nothing but demand stuff from other people, for 5 days straight, then get bored and disconnect. 

It doesn't matter if that person is Wicker, Wortox, Woodie, or whoever. The contribution will be little to nothing. 

A Wormwood planting seeds and farming crops is not a bad player, but a big contributor to the wellness of the server. 

An experienced player choosing Wes, will automatically go for ruins rushes, treasure hunts, lunar exploration, base building, or boss rushes, because they know how to not be bored, contributing a ton of resources in the process. 

And yes - they could play Wigfrid to make helmets, or Willow to make stars, but they are in the mood for Wes, and still deliver a lot more than 80% of the usual pub players. 

And as for needing more resources to feed him - despite the name of the game, it's really not that hard to get a lot of food. 

Calling public server Wes players a net loss from the start, because of your own prejudice, is far removed from any experience with actual good players. 

I vividly remember my first time encountering a pro Wes, when I had only a few hours of playtime myself. That dude solo'd dragonfly on day 5, and provided the base with 2 furnaces by day 7. Chances are, you haven't even seen a real one yet. 

if what you said is indeed true, then why would people be against wes getting buffs and maybe rework to be as good as everyone else? everyone would be happy in the end and more people would use wes

[Cheggf]

I thought of a way Wes could be buffed without upsetting anyone. Give him a skill tree with only one Insight point and one choice: gain a new animation that can play when you inspect things (if you don't want the real perk), or undo the tool change he got where he works slower with durability reduced to compensate so he works at normal speed with normal durability (weapons stay weaker, only tools become normal).

The work speed modifier is boring and not fun so they should let us undo it. 

[Kaioh]

1 hour ago, lovegrooove said:

A bad player (at least in my definition) is somebody that stands in base, eats the fridge, and keeps asking for twigs and grass, because they're too lazy or scared to walk to the next door biome, in order to collect it themselves. They stand there doing nothing but demand stuff from other people, for 5 days straight, then get bored and disconnect. 

It doesn't matter if that person is Wicker, Wortox, Woodie, or whoever. The contribution will be little to nothing. 

A Wormwood planting seeds and farming crops is not a bad player, but a big contributor to the wellness of the server. 

An experienced player choosing Wes, will automatically go for ruins rushes, treasure hunts, lunar exploration, base building, or boss rushes, because they know how to not be bored, contributing a ton of resources in the process. 

And yes - they could play Wigfrid to make helmets, or Willow to make stars, but they are in the mood for Wes, and still deliver a lot more than 80% of the usual pub players. 

And as for needing more resources to feed him - despite the name of the game, it's really not that hard to get a lot of food. 

Calling public server Wes players a net loss from the start, because of your own prejudice, is far removed from any experience with actual good players. 

I vividly remember my first time encountering a pro Wes, when I had only a few hours of playtime myself. That dude solo'd dragonfly on day 5, and provided the base with 2 furnaces by day 7. Chances are, you haven't even seen a real one yet. 

The irony of this comment is that a bad player (by your definition) playing Wes is much more likely to do these things you've described than they would with any other character due to the heavy downsides handed to the character, which just proves my point earlier where I said "When people play Wes, I get the impression that people are just trolling and looking for plausible deniability to be unhelpful (Basically by using the excuse that Wes is too weak and with few advantages to be tremendously helpful), also potentially trying to grief". Frankly, what you describe as a bad player sounds like a troll to me. Your bar for a good player is very low if you think Wormwood just planting seeds is good enough to pass as a good player. Semantics issue I guess.

 

Also, and this is for everyone arguing this point here, can we stop this whole "expert Wes players vs noob everyone else" nonsensical argument? It's a false equivalence fallacy which ignores many crucial details and it gets us absolutely nowhere. If none of you can do that, I see absolutely no point in continuing this

[lovegrooove]

1 hour ago, Kaioh said:

The irony of this comment is that a bad player (by your definition) playing Wes is much more likely to do these things you've described than they would with any other character due to the heavy downsides handed to the character, which just proves my point earlier where I said "When people play Wes, I get the impression that people are just trolling and looking for plausible deniability to be unhelpful (Basically by using the excuse that Wes is too weak and with few advantages to be tremendously helpful), also potentially trying to grief". Frankly, what you describe as a bad player sounds like a troll to me. Your bar for a good player is very low if you think Wormwood just planting seeds is good enough to pass as a good player. Semantics issue I guess.

 

Also, and this is for everyone arguing this point here, can we stop this whole "expert Wes players vs noob everyone else" nonsensical argument? It's a false equivalence fallacy which ignores many crucial details and it gets us absolutely nowhere. If none of you can do that, I see absolutely no point in continuing this

The irony of my comment? I'm describing that if you're an expert player, it doesn't matter one bit which character you play, even Wes. And you say people who pick Wes are more likely to grief. What's ironic about that exactly? Griefers will also grief, no matter what character they play.

And I'm answering the specific parts of the posts I'm quoting, while you guys keep either ignoring mine, or glossing over those points, by referencing different posts you made, which I'm not referring to. 

So I get it now. Just keep complaining, and confusing personal experience with individual people, with a flaw in character design then. Have a nice day.

[Nikki Darks]

4 hours ago, Edible Coal said:

if what you said is indeed true, then why would people be against wes getting buffs and maybe rework to be as good as everyone else? everyone would be happy in the end and more people would use wes

Because people who pick Wes... Pick Wes because of how much worse he is than other characters?

That is the whole point of Wes, to make you experience worse/more difficult than with any other survivor.

People who play him don't want him to be good when the challenge lies in him being so bad.

[gaymime]

3 hours ago, Kaioh said:

Also, and this is for everyone arguing this point here, can we stop this whole "expert Wes players vs noob everyone else" nonsensical argument? It's a false equivalence fallacy which ignores many crucial details and it gets us absolutely nowhere. If none of you can do that, I see absolutely no point in continuing this

you and i dont agree on much but on this one point we are mostly aligned. people talking about the skill of imaginary wes players isnt really doing anything to change, challenge or even recognise the actual problem put forth. people are simply not playing as wes. the important thing is to get people to play as wes not to argue that if someone were to play wes they'd probably be better than everyone else and so because only excellent players would play him he is fine actually.

 

[Edible Coal]

if anyone have ideas to make wes playrate go up without buffing him, im all ears

[gaymime]

13 minutes ago, Edible Coal said:

if anyone have ideas to make wes playrate go up without buffing him, im all ears

there really isnt anything that would do that to a statistically signifiant degree since the mass of debuffs are a major part of why he is so unpopular BUT since you aren't being sincere and no answer would satisfy you i think i don't mind pretending i dont see the trap and listing some things that are minimally or not at all helpful to a solo wes playing a standard game but would be at least a little enticing to players who focus on longer-term games or to speciality-players(like speedrunners) or to groups of mid-skill ot low-skill players

 

if wes is in a server(and alive) the sanity drain from ghosts is nullified for the whole server. 

if wes does not do an aggroing action(murdering, attacking, thieving, carrying meat etc) he gets and extra 1-3 seconds before a hostile mob attack him(including charlie). timid mobs also take longer to notice him so he can get closer before they flee

he has better loot-pool odds though he also has a higher chance of spawning vargs, pirates, ghosts and other summonable entities.

if wes fights a krampus the odds of a sack dropping go from the normal 1% up to 10% like when fighting klaus. 

give wes a balloonomancy item that when sat on the ground gives garland-levels of aoe sanity to non-wes players within two tiles, it degrades as it sits on the ground but it can be held indefinitely in the inventory(it would function in the same manner as a pumpkin lantern but sanity instead of light). 

can play one-man-band without the usual sanity drain.

runs faster than other unmodified players when not wearing any item in the torso slot. 

give him a small passive 1 tile sanity aura for players who are not walter or maxwell(neither of whom care for wes). 

give him an option to do a small dance to deaggro hostile mobs in a two-tile radious that are targeted on other players and redirect them onto himself once the dance finishes. 

let wes craft invisible "rope" that only costs sanity and despawns when set down or given to another player but otherwise functions -as- rope and can be used in recipes saving players on grass

let wes craft an invisible "oar" that only costs sanity and despawns when set down or given to another player but otherwise functions -as- an oar

let wes craft a single-toot flute. it would have a higher sanity cost than other balloon items and have a longer animation to use than the normal flute but otherwise functions the same way

let wes eat eternal fruitcake

[lovegrooove]

1 hour ago, gaymime said:

people talking about the skill of imaginary wes players isnt really doing anything to change, challenge or even recognise the actual problem put forth. people are simply not playing as wes.

I'm not talking about hypothetical expert players that play Wes - I'm talking about actual people who do that.

I know dozens of people who enjoy playing Wes time and time again (myself included), and I know 2 people who exclusively play him. 

"People are simply not playing as Wes" is not true in the slightest. Yes - only a fraction of the playerbase is picking Wes, because only a fraction of the playerbase is actually good enough to enjoy him, while at the same time wanting the challenge he brings. 

Presenting your opinion as absolute facts, doesn't make them any more true. 

And changing how a character works, just because you want other people to play them more, is not necessary. Just enjoy Wes yourself, and let everybody play what they wanna play. 

[gaymime]

59 minutes ago, lovegrooove said:

I'm not talking about hypothetical expert players that play Wes - I'm talking about actual people who do that.

I know dozens of people who enjoy playing Wes time and time again (myself included), and I know 2 people who exclusively play him. 

"People are simply not playing as Wes" is not true in the slightest. Yes - only a fraction of the playerbase is picking Wes, because only a fraction of the playerbase is actually good enough to enjoy him, while at the same time wanting the challenge he brings. 

Presenting your opinion as absolute facts, doesn't make them any more true. 

And changing how a character works, just because you want other people to play them more, is not necessary. Just enjoy Wes yourself, and let everybody play what they wanna play. 

a lack of self-awareness isnt the same as being correct. follow your own advice and go enjoy wes instead of trying to tell other people that they are wrong for wanting more people to play this character. i would be much happier to see you or one of the "dozens" of wes players you purport to know in the pubs with me actually playing.

Edited December 3, 2025 by gaymime
errant italics

[lovegrooove]

41 minutes ago, gaymime said:

a lack of self-awareness isnt the same as being correct. 

In reference to what exactly? You said "people are simply not playing as Wes", which is an absolute statement, that is pretty obviously not true. 

41 minutes ago, gaymime said:

follow your own advice and go enjoy wes instead of trying to tell other people that they are wrong for wanting more people to play this character. i would be much happier to see you or one of the "dozens" of wes players you purport to know in the pubs with me actually playing.

I am enjoying Wes. Actually played 5 hours of Wes this morning. I have never seen your name online, might not be in the same region. I play on eu servers. 

[Cheggf]

2 hours ago, lovegrooove said:

In reference to what exactly? You said "people are simply not playing as Wes", which is an absolute statement, that is pretty obviously not true. 

I am enjoying Wes. Actually played 5 hours of Wes this morning. I have never seen your name online, might not be in the same region. I play on eu servers. 

I don't think either of the people you're responding to are responding to you in good faith. 

[Nikki Darks]

Thing about Wes not being played...

The reason he is not played by many people is because he is a challenge character, all downsides. His playstyle makes the experience more difficult, hence why people don't pick him.

But people here claim they want "more people to play Wes". Okay sure, that's nice... But the only way to achieve that is to make Wes easier to play and/or more powerful...

The issue with this is that this goes against the main reason Wes players play Wes... For the difficulty.

So people of course want the entirety of Wes to be changed just so that "more people play him".

First of all, who cares if more people play him? This isn't a moba/pvp game where pick rates/ban rates matter... Not every character needs 100+ players.

If there is a small playerbase that enjoys playing as Wes exists... Let them enjoy playing as Wes?

This argument of "barely anyone plays Wes" holds no weight, because as I said previously... How many players play a character does not matter.

And I have a sneaking suspicious that people just want Wes to be made easier/more powerful so that THEY can play him, and that they don't really care about his low player %.

[Bumber64]

5 hours ago, gaymime said:

give him a small passive 1 tile sanity aura for players who are not walter or maxwell(neither of whom care for wes).

Walter doesn't like Wes? Does he consider mimes to be the real monsters?

[reddocc]

I cannot take Wes seriously I can only think of downsides in his eventual skill tree. Maybe those downsides could have a singular ultra niche use but mostly downsides.

The only and only upside Wes might ever get is lunar/shadow alignment bonuses.

Here's some skills for wes that make him objectively worse. But might have some use, the skills maked by "*" are locked by a straight up useless skill

-. Wes is more prone to freezing(ex: Willow), last longer on fire and takes more dmg(ex: Wormwood)

-. Wes sneezes once every day in spring

-. Picking a flower makes Wes attract bees(ex: Wormwood). This doesn't pacify bees.

-. The animation of breaking tools/armors last longer.

-. Hit stun last longer.

-. Crafting takes longer.

-. Wes has 60 negative insulation.

-. Regular spiders can make a leap attack when attacking Wes.

-. Wes cannot murder anything in his inventory.

-. *Wes can craft a frog balloon hat that makes frog sounds everytime Wes hits something. This is the only effect of this hat and it breaks when taking dmg.

-. *On death any pile of balloons that wes was carrying explodes breaking structures and doing 50dmg only to other survivors/followers.

-. *On death wes skeleton is replaced by a ballon skeleton that explodes, does 5dmg and drops no boneshards.

-. *Mosquitoes following Wes keep following him independent of the time of the day. Also they have a chance to spawn from any pond if wes is nearby, even on winter.

-. * Popping a balloon makes a high-pitched sound.

the next skills could be made worse requiring to kill the celestial champion and ancient fuelweaver everytime Wes joins a world or changes character.

-. *Wes can craft a lunar infused ballon costing one moon glass this ballon does 10 planar dmg and 5 more to shadow aligned creatures.

.- *Wes can craft a shadow infused ballon costing one nightmare fuel, this ballon does 10 planar dmg and 5 more to lunar aligned creatures.

Edited December 3, 2025 by reddocc

[SapoLover]

The idea of Wes having perks that on surface level are disadvantages but having a super secret upside you can take advantage of with enough experience is my favorite. Problem is... I can't come with any examples. So... nevermind I was here-

[Nikki Darks]

I unironically think that making Wes' skill tree be a "pick your poison" type of deal would be pretty cool.

Like, every skill is a new perk that makes your survival more difficult. 

Even lower stats, damage, maybe taking more damage, etc, etc?

[Semind]

I might play Wes if the skill tree gave him a perk that permanently makes him play like Getting Over It

[gaymime]

5 hours ago, Bumber64 said:

Walter doesn't like Wes? Does he consider mimes to be the real monsters?

from the way he reacts to wes in his descriptions he has some degree of coulrophobia and misidentifies wes (the mime) as wes (a clown)

7 hours ago, lovegrooove said:

In reference to what exactly?

you keep posting in here about how people who play wes are probably better players than the average as if it is some sort of truth and not just the feeling you get based on some unverifiable anecdotal evidence only you are privy to then get angry that people arent taking you seriously when you talk vaguely about really the good players playing as wes and contributing more than other players while at the same time blowing off other peoples' equally unverifiable anecdotal evidence of rubbish players colouring their opinions of wes for just being an opinion. you dont hold yourself to the standard you seem to be demanding of others and it comes off (at best) as being self-unaware

9 hours ago, lovegrooove said:

I am enjoying Wes. Actually played 5 hours of Wes this morning. I have never seen your name online, might not be in the same region. I play on eu servers. 

i play in random places though i tend to play on SEA servers and more recently since upgrading both my laptop and my internet enough to reduce the stuttering NA servers so that isnt much of a matchup if you are sticking to EU ones. that being said of course you wouldnt see this name on steam; it doesnt make sense without the context of my art thread(or when i am playing anything other than dst) and frankly enough people have been violent and malicious enough on this forum in particular that i do NOT want to be stalked all the way onto the platform i use to decompress from stressful social situations by being cavalier with sharing my info.

Edited December 4, 2025 by gaymime
small clarification

[AliceShiki]

1 hour ago, gaymime said:

you keep posting in here about how people who play wes are probably better players than the average as if it is some sort of truth and not just the feeling you get based on some unverifiable anecdotal evidence only you are privy to then get angry that people arent taking you seriously when you talk vaguely about really the good players playing as wes and contributing more than other players while at the same time blowing off other peoples' equally unverifiable anecdotal evidence of rubbish players colouring their opinions of wes for just being an opinion. you dont hold yourself to the standard you seem to be demanding of others and it comes off (at best) as being self-unaware

Usually speaking, outside of rare exceptions or people just trying out the character for the first time, the people who play challenge characters will only be the more experienced players.

It's not so much of an anecdotal experience, but more of a logical deduction... Generally speaking, one won't pick a challenge character if they don't feel comfortable enough with the game to challenge themselves.

So... Well, there are always exceptions to everything, of course, but most Wes players should be better than the average player because the average player most likely won't feel comfortable with picking Wes anyways.

[gaymime]

10 hours ago, AliceShiki said:

Usually speaking, outside of rare exceptions or people just trying out the character for the first time, the people who play challenge characters will only be the more experienced players.

It's not so much of an anecdotal experience, but more of a logical deduction... Generally speaking, one won't pick a challenge character if they don't feel comfortable enough with the game to challenge themselves.

So... Well, there are always exceptions to everything, of course, but most Wes players should be better than the average player because the average player most likely won't feel comfortable with picking Wes anyways.

i like playing with newbies(people with less than 50 hours of play, often where playing with me was their first or second time playing at all) and i have had people pick wes because they either agreed with me he looked cute and chose blindly or i picked him and so they did too. "should" and "are" is different. by my own experience wes players "should" be weak and poor at playing the game because that is a lot of my experience with people playing wes. it is NOT a fact though and treating it like it is logical to assume it is true simply because it is the reality i personally experience with no other accounting would not reasonable so i dont do it. in the same regard assuming a strong player will choose a harder character to play by merit of being a strong player in a game that is not structured to reward playing said character is not logical and leads to some pretty bad takes

 

[AliceShiki]

4 hours ago, gaymime said:

i like playing with newbies(people with less than 50 hours of play, often where playing with me was their first or second time playing at all) and i have had people pick wes because they either agreed with me he looked cute and chose blindly or i picked him and so they did too. 

I mean... You for some reason not telling them that this is a terrible idea is on you.

Based on what you've said, it seems like you're indirectly pushing people towards making a bad decision... This doesn't take anything away from my original argument, it just makes me question why you didn't tell them that this was a bad idea.

[gaymime]

25 minutes ago, AliceShiki said:

I mean... You for some reason not telling them that this is a terrible idea is on you.

Based on what you've said, it seems like you're indirectly pushing people towards making a bad decision... This doesn't take anything away from my original argument, it just makes me question why you didn't tell them that this was a bad idea.

never said i didnt tell them anything. you are making weird assumptions based on nothing. i only said that newbies will sometimes pick him and the reasons they do.

[shaurun]

31 minutes ago, AliceShiki said:

I mean... You for some reason not telling them that this is a terrible idea is on you.

Based on what you said, you consider new people picking Wes make a terrible decision. But if Wes is like the others, just slower - so he still can contribute kinda at the same level, why do you say it's bad for a newbie? You have an opinion that Wes for some reason should only be picked by very experienced players who feel too easy with other characters?

But 1st, experienced players who are kinda bored of regular gameplay could also pick someone else for new experience (Wes basically doesn't adds anything new to the gameplay). 2nd, new players might straggle with Wolfgang more whan with Wes or Wilson. 3rd, Wes is not only picked to prove yourself you're great. Wes is actually very nice for his personality and lore.

Don't get me wrong, I feel like you want make him challenge only character, while in fact he's not challenging at all for experienced player. You also want to save his reputation as avoided and feared character for the newbies. You want to make the decision of picking him only based on person's experience, like you've picked it - your responsibility,you know it's bad. And you also try to prove that everyone who says like Wes is treated as less-contributing character are wrong, because you expect only experienced players would pick him.

This is wrong. 

[AliceShiki]

3 hours ago, shaurun said:

Based on what you said, you consider new people picking Wes make a terrible decision.

Yes, of course it's a terrible idea for a new player to pick a challenge character. That's not even a question.

3 hours ago, shaurun said:

But if Wes is like the others, just slower - so he still can contribute kinda at the same level, why do you say it's bad for a newbie?

Because they'll die more easily with that pitiful HP and bad damage multipliers. Why are you making bad faith questions that you already know the answer to?

Also, nobody said Wes contributes at the same level as other characters. What was said was that an experienced player with Wes will contribute more than a bad player with Wolfgang, which is definitely true. Because the skill difference is more impactful than the character power difference. Don't put words in other people's mouths.

3 hours ago, shaurun said:

2nd, new players might straggle with Wolfgang more whan with Wes

That will never happen. Don't make bad faith statements you know are false. You're just wasting everyone's time.

3 hours ago, shaurun said:

3rd, Wes is not only picked to prove yourself you're great

Nobody said that. Challenge characters are picked because challenging yourself is fun when you already are quite good at a game. 

Proving yourself through a videogame is something that only people who desperately need to touch grass care about.

4 hours ago, shaurun said:

I feel like you want make him challenge only character

Why do you keep arguing in bad faith? I don't want to make him anything. He is the challenge character of the game. This is undeniable.

Like, wow, seriously, how many bad faith arguments can you cram into one post? This is crazy.

4 hours ago, shaurun said:

while in fact he's not challenging at all for experienced player.

If you're Guile-level of good, sure. Otherwise, he is challenging for experienced players.

Having less HP, dealing less dmg, taking longer to prepare for threats all make him harder than other characters. That's not even a question. Stop arguing in bad faith.

But yeah, if you're on Guile's level and can basically beat everything in the game hitless, then sure, nothing in DST will ever offer you a challenge, but "experienced players" and "good enough to do all bosses hitless" are not the same thing. And anyone who isn't at that level will actually be challenged by Wes. 

4 hours ago, gaymime said:

never said i didnt tell them anything. you are making weird assumptions based on nothing. i only said that newbies will sometimes pick him and the reasons they do.

... Why wouldn't I assume you didn't try to discourage them when you just said they agreed with you about the character being cute or picking the character after you picked it. This sounds like you're actually trying to encourage them to try Wes out, not the other way around.

If you actually told them, "this is the worst character in the game and you'll probably have a terrible time playing him before you get used to the game, and you'll probably die super easily by using this character"... And they still picked Wes anyways... Then that's on them for not being very smart, but I think it's pretty safe to assume you did not say that to them based on context.

If you actually did, then... Yeah, not very smart players you were playing with.