What are your thoughts on

[Radicaljoe]

41 minutes ago, Nikki Darks said:

Saying that Wickerbottom's "downside" exists is already giving it too much credit. Not being able to sleep only affects 1 aspect of the game, which are the tents (calling all of those sleeping options tents since they do the same thing).

It's often more of an upside, you can ignore the sleepy grazers that protect the lunar rift because they won't bite you until you fall asleep. Wicker can mine the whole rift danger free.

It does have the downside of no Winter's feast tree and Phase 3 CC can stun lock you to death though.

[Milordo]

7 hours ago, Mr Giggio said:

My favorite example of this is Eberferatu's video on YouTube talking about how HP doesn't matter and doing a lot of bosses with low HP bar and then when playing live in a boss rush tournament died to dragonfly due fire damage ticking him down. "As long you wear armor", untill you are the one playing it.

That video is sooo MANURE.

I'm sorry but IT MUST BE SAID. There are so many mistakes and bad assumptions that it makes my blood boils as hot lava filled with rage. I reaalllyyy don't know where to even begin so I'll just spit randomly like a crazy schizophrenic man, because I can't stay too long behind these things.

1) Why basing *inhaling hard* again on a f***ing boss rush? AGAIN, on a rushing run. WHY, WHY, WHY. 

DON'T STARVE IS NOT A B O S S  R U S H.

Sure, it's a part of the game, but it's not  everything. If you want to base your thesis on something like Don't Starve, you need to show and demonstrate all the points. Matter of fact your point about him dying to Dragonfly's fire already proves it, but I even remember him dying to a Tallbird in that video and he put it as a joke when it literally destroys everything of the video!!!!

2) Don't Starve is a game where damage is literally almost inetivable, unless, maybe, if you do something precised such as boss rush runs. In a normal vanilla run, where you explore everything it's not possible.

3) New player experience. Aaaahh, this forgotten thing. How wonderful would it be, to everyone to be forced at 15 hp?

 

THANK YOU, OH THANK YOU MR GIGGIO, for shedding some light into this sometime ignorant behaviour of the community. I appreciate A LOT, your transparency list of deaths as examples! Take a big potato cup!

(That guy also has a lot of bad controversial takes but I'll pause on this one.)

[brednas7]

12 hours ago, DegenerateFurry said:

Warly's food memory downside is good in theory, but is outdated because we now have enough high hunger and good healing options that you can just alternate them to get around it. As someone who plays Warly often, I suggest the food memory length be doubled (I've tested this on a modded character, it's playable).

Having a longer food memory will harm Warly's ability to nomad and costs more inventory to carry food. Keep in mind that only some high hunger dishes are available in the early game and some are stall or spoiled after 5 days. 2 day food memory is the sweet spot i feel becease of food spoilage.
 
How exactly will Warly prep for areas like the ruins or the ocean with a 4 day food memory without repeating a dish?
 
Warly is designed to nomad well with his crockpot and his high max hunger, the support side just doesn't really start going until first spring usually.

[Nikki Darks]

29 minutes ago, brednas7 said:

Having a longer food memory will harm Warly's ability to nomad and costs more inventory to carry food. Keep in mind that only some high hunger dishes are available in the early game and some are stall or spoiled after 5 days. 2 day food memory is the sweet spot i feel becease of food spoilage.
 
How exactly will Warly prep for areas like the ruins or the ocean with a 4 day food memory without repeating a dish?
 
Warly is designed to nomad well with his crockpot and his high max hunger, the support side just doesn't really start going until first spring usually.

You act as if his memory downside prevents him from eating food completely. If I recall correctly it just reduces the stats by a % for every time you repeat the same dish, up to a much higher % reduced stat value.

You can still repeat dishes if you're in a situation which calls for you to do so????

If that's not how his downside works then just pretend I never typed this out, been a while since I touched Warly.

[brednas7]

1 hour ago, Nikki Darks said:

You act as if his memory downside prevents him from eating food completely. If I recall correctly it just reduces the stats by a % for every time you repeat the same dish, up to a much higher % reduced stat value.

You can still repeat dishes if you're in a situation which calls for you to do so????

If that's not how his downside works then just pretend I never typed this out, been a while since I touched Warly.

Yes Warly can repeat a dish, but with 2 day food memory you can't just repeat a dish unless you do it back to back to avoid resetting the 2 day timer and with a 4 day food memory you need 360 hunger total for 4 day so from close to 0 hunger back to 250 then wait till below 140 to fill the last 110 to finish the cycle without using any dish you used from earlier.
 
With 4 day food memory just becomes doing double stew followed by double meatballs and punishes you for not using 150 hunger dishes.

Edited January 13 by brednas7
Corrected spelling error

[DegenerateFurry]

3 hours ago, brednas7 said:

Having a longer food memory will harm Warly's ability to nomad and costs more inventory to carry food. Keep in mind that only some high hunger dishes are available in the early game and some are stall or spoiled after 5 days. 2 day food memory is the sweet spot i feel becease of food spoilage.
 
How exactly will Warly prep for areas like the ruins or the ocean with a 4 day food memory without repeating a dish?
 
Warly is designed to nomad well with his crockpot and his high max hunger, the support side just doesn't really start going until first spring usually.

 

Vanilla Warly can actually survive entirely on meaty stews or Tall Scotch eggs. His hunger drains at 90 points per day and he has 250 hunger, so if you just let his hunger get near zero and then eat two meaty stews, you'll actually have 70 hunger left by the time his food memory resets. The first repeat is only a 10% penalty, a 135 hunger meaty stew is still great.

The real downside of his food memory isn't that you're gonna go hungry if you know recipes and how to play around the hunger drain, it's that you need a variety of healing food. Sure, you can eat two meaty stews in a row, just not eat for three days, and repeat, but if you're getting hit in a boss fight, your first pierogi heals you for 40, your second for 36, your third for 32, your fourth for 26, your fifth for 20, and your sixth for a pitiful 12. As Warly, if you're taking lots of damage, you (unlike any other character not named Wanda or Wormwood) will need special preparation to soak it by cramming food down your gullet. So, you'll need to switch it up. Maybe you have three pierogis and then switch to trail mix, or maybe you start the fight at low hunger and heal yourself for 60 with a tall Scotch egg before switching to pierogis, or both if you're fighting the twins and you're not the best at dodging them. 

 

I have, as I said, played around with a five-day food memory as Warly using mods. The ocean can be challenging for him without sufficient preparation (farming for useful recipe crops) even normally, but it's still doable with the right boat setup. You can put a bird cage on your boat for eggs. You can even cram a pig house on there too, and with monster meat (easily acquirable from salt shoals or sea spiders), that means two normal meat every four days, which means stuff like surf 'n turf being an option. You will need to ocean fish and you'll want to catch corn cods, and it's not a bad idea to occasionally visit the waterlogged biome to stock up on stuff like leafy meat and figs, but it is technically doable to survive entirely at sea as Warly even with an extended food memory. If you're just trying to get to lunar and back or do Pearl's quest? Please, all you need is a little prep time to get meat, mushrooms, and tallbird eggs. 

As for the ruins, even with a five-day food memory, a little prep time makes that doable too, and I'm not talking about farming for crops, I just mean bringing some food with you. Honey, normal eggs, meat (preferably jerky for spoilage timer but raw will do since you can cook it to refresh it a bit), some carrots from bunny houses, and maybe some silk for fishing rods if you're really planning to stay a while. Meaty stews, meatballs, honey ham, honey nuggets, pierogis, bacon and eggs, omelettes, veggie skillets, seafood gumbo... it's more than enough to keep you going. Weight your decisions on what to eat based on spoilage timers and hunger values, remember that lichen is veggie filler, remember that monkeys give bananas and morsels, and keep in mind that Ancient Guardian gives you eight raw meat. The lengthened food memory turns Warly's eating experience into strategic resource management and makes it mandatory to eat non-150-hunger foods.

Edited January 14 by DegenerateFurry

[Bumber64]

9 hours ago, Nikki Darks said:

The more you play Wicker (not including veterans) the more you realize she has no downside.

You forgot to mention her aversion to stale food. It's kind of a joke too, since only WX avoids the stat penalty anyway.

[Edible Coal]

17 hours ago, Nikki Darks said:

You act as if his memory downside prevents him from eating food completely. If I recall correctly it just reduces the stats by a % for every time you repeat the same dish, up to a much higher % reduced stat value.

You can still repeat dishes if you're in a situation which calls for you to do so????

If that's not how his downside works then just pretend I never typed this out, been a while since I touched Warly.

yes you can, however it resets the timer back to 2 days, meaning you eventually have to eat something else to let that meal be forgotten

13 hours ago, DegenerateFurry said:

--snip--

all that just to gain the ability to budget wolfgang if you work hard enough for your farms ...... 

[Nikki Darks]

11 hours ago, Bumber64 said:

You forgot to mention her aversion to stale food. It's kind of a joke too, since only WX avoids the stat penalty anyway.

I forgot that was even a thing, I never eat stale food on any character.

[Bobot roi]

19 hours ago, Milordo said:

That video is sooo MANURE.

I'm sorry but IT MUST BE SAID. There are so many mistakes and bad assumptions that it makes my blood boils as hot lava filled with rage. I reaalllyyy don't know where to even begin so I'll just spit randomly like a crazy schizophrenic man, because I can't stay too long behind these things.

1) Why basing *inhaling hard* again on a f***ing boss rush? AGAIN, on a rushing run. WHY, WHY, WHY. 

DON'T STARVE IS NOT A B O S S  R U S H.

Sure, it's a part of the game, but it's not  everything. If you want to base your thesis on something like Don't Starve, you need to show and demonstrate all the points. Matter of fact your point about him dying to Dragonfly's fire already proves it, but I even remember him dying to a Tallbird in that video and he put it as a joke when it literally destroys everything of the video!!!!

2) Don't Starve is a game where damage is literally almost inetivable, unless, maybe, if you do something precised such as boss rush runs. In a normal vanilla run, where you explore everything it's not possible.

3) New player experience. Aaaahh, this forgotten thing. How wonderful would it be, to everyone to be forced at 15 hp?

 

THANK YOU, OH THANK YOU MR GIGGIO, for shedding some light into this sometime ignorant behaviour of the community. I appreciate A LOT, your transparency list of deaths as examples! Take a big potato cup!

(That guy also has a lot of bad controversial takes but I'll pause on this one.)

Not only did Eberferatu not fight the boss with a beefalo which effectively gives you extra hp, low health didn't play a big role since the main issue was him running out of healing at the end of the fight and the speedrun nature of the tournament forced him to take the hail Mary due to time running out soon. To add onto the "low health not playing a big role" it's not like his hp went from 75 to 0 instantly, in fact, wearing dreadstone armor functionally gave him the same health as Wilson with a football helmet (something you absolutely cannot call low health), he didn't die because of low health, he just died as a character who happens to have low health. 

[Edible Coal]

Downside and upside are ultimately the two sides of the same coin

they exist to push you away from the "Wilson" experience, to use tactics and items that you would normally never consider

what if you have no sanity issue but is way harder to heal ? wormwood

what if you can produce resources in cost of sanity? wicker

what if you want to enjoy cooperative combat? wendy 

most character did that job pretty well, and i dont think adding more downside would make sense consider dst is getting harder and harder by each update.

 

[ShadowDuelist]

Wicker’s real downside is being replaced by maxwell with a bone helm as soon as you crafted all her books and a bookshelf.

[Nikki Darks]

2 hours ago, Edible Coal said:

Downside and upside are ultimately the two sides of the same coin

they exist to push you away from the "Wilson" experience, to use tactics and items that you would normally never consider

what if you have no sanity issue but is way harder to heal ? wormwood

what if you can produce resources in cost of sanity? wicker

what if you want to enjoy cooperative combat? wendy 

most character did that job pretty well, and i dont think adding more downside would make sense consider dst is getting harder and harder by each update.

 

I would not call them the two sides of the same coin and that's because upsides allow for new strats, downsides enforce new strats.

An upside essentially opens up more options for you to explore... If you want to.

An upside closes one door and forces you to open the other one, and that's a good thing.

Every game with characters needs to have downsides to avoid the game getting stale. They are more important than upsides.

Wilson is the neutral example, no downsides or upsides.

Wormwood is a great downside example, removes all food healing options and forces you to take advantage of healing items, tents, etc, etc, things other characters would never bother using.

Wicker is just a great example of bad downsides, you pick Wickerbottom to play like Wilson with insane bonuses.

Downsides are the key to making a good character, weaknesses open up doors to gameplay players would maybe never even think of exploring, and that leads to play innovation and creativity. Just having upsides you can MAYBE choose to use in order to freshen up your gameplay is not enough.

I think this one League character designer (the one with the uwu beanie) once said that players sometimes need to be forced to explore different options in order to not get bored of the same strats they use just because they are the best ones.

[Milordo]

4 hours ago, Bobot roi said:

Not only did Eberferatu not fight the boss with a beefalo which effectively gives you extra hp, low health didn't play a big role since the main issue was him running out of healing at the end of the fight and the speedrun nature of the tournament forced him to take the hail Mary due to time running out soon. To add onto the "low health not playing a big role" it's not like his hp went from 75 to 0 instantly, in fact, wearing dreadstone armor functionally gave him the same health as Wilson with a football helmet (something you absolutely cannot call low health), he didn't die because of low health, he just died as a character who happens to have low health. 

Cool to know 👍 and more proof to that.

[DegenerateFurry]

5 hours ago, Edible Coal said:

all that just to gain the ability to budget wolfgang if you work hard enough for your farms ...... 

As if! Warly has so much else going for him.

Glowberry mousse = slotless long-lasting light in the ruins day one scienceless (no crops needed). Volt goat jelly = buff you can give to any character, including Wolfgang, to make them do more DPS (no crops needed for that either). The ability to make crock pot foods on the go = high hunger, sanity, and healing whenever you want, just bring ingredients. Fish cordon bleu = slotless Eyebrella for cheap, no Deerclops (or crops) needed, easiest spring start character except properly-specced Wurt. 

With crops, asparagazpacho and hot dragon chili salad make you immune to summer and winter respectively (again requiring no slots to do so), honey crystals let you make literally anyone a way faster worker (even beaver Woodie if Woodie munches a dish with them first), and chili and garlic powder add a little more combat effectiveness to anyone. 

Wolfgang's a big name in the DPS game, but he can't reach his full potential without Warly's help. Warly is a support character that's also pretty solid solo. I do think he needs some buffs and some more dishes that do interesting things, but he is far from a "budget Wolfgang", that's only part of his existing kit. 

[Jakepeng99]

Funny how one sided it is. I swear people used to say downsides suck

[Well-met]

Pearl's conch makes me realize I think its time for more of these kind of items

[MarcoReverie]

7 hours ago, Nikki Darks said:

Wilson is the neutral example, no downsides or upsides.

Even Wilson has ds-us. The beard in winter is an upside, but downside on summer. Besides, you depend on having a razor.

[Edible Coal]

On 1/15/2026 at 2:12 AM, Nikki Darks said:

I would not call them the two sides of the same coin and that's because upsides allow for new strats, downsides enforce new strats.

An upside essentially opens up more options for you to explore... If you want to.

An upside closes one door and forces you to open the other one, and that's a good thing.

Every game with characters needs to have downsides to avoid the game getting stale. They are more important than upsides.

Wilson is the neutral example, no downsides or upsides.

Wormwood is a great downside example, removes all food healing options and forces you to take advantage of healing items, tents, etc, etc, things other characters would never bother using.

--snip--

yes but the reason why i said this they are ususally the two side of the same coin is because they ususally enforce an idea, like wigfrid, she cant eat veggie items, and veggie items are ususally great sanity givers and healers. therefore wigfrid upside is that she can generate sanity and healing by wacking things and have better tool for combat to get meat. This enforce a hunter character that rely less on farms 

On 1/15/2026 at 2:12 AM, Nikki Darks said:

Wormwood is a great downside example, removes all food healing options and forces you to take advantage of healing items, tents, etc, etc, things other characters would never bother using.

Thats a big reason, also wormwood health are more valuable then other player because he can generate resources with it (living log, magical animals, basic resouces), this pushes player to use their health more wisely 

[Jakepeng99]

Downside update when?

[TuTaLokaum]

I really love Wormwood, but the sanity gain mechanic in his kit is crazy. Specially about trees losing 5 sanity chopping one and then gaining 20 back planting 2 pinecones is busted.

[Bumber64]

I haven't played Wormwood, but is it that practical? You carry around an axe and pinecones instead of sanity food? And then stand around planting and chopping?

Seems like any convenience is undone by inability to eat blue caps for healing. And planting trees in the atrium was removed, so it won't work for AFW fight.

[Nikki Darks]

3 hours ago, Bumber64 said:

I haven't played Wormwood, but is it that practical? You carry around an axe and pinecones instead of sanity food? And then stand around planting and chopping?

Seems like any convenience is undone by inability to eat blue caps for healing. And planting trees in the atrium was removed, so it won't work for AFW fight.

1 seed is 5 sanity, and you're not gonna plant every wild seed you get. And correct me if I'm wrong, but can't he just dig and plant the same sapling to gain a net positive sanity amount?

[Gashzer]

Wormwood not taking any health change from food is a buff not a downside.

Crockpot/healing food is insanely overrated. Wormwood can craft bramble husk, walk into a spider quarry during dusk, hold f with spear and bramble husk to tank kill about 100 spiders. 

Use the silk to craft both tent/siesta to heal non-boss damage, turn spider glands into non-spoilable healing salves for boss fights and just ram raw monster meat down your throat if you are hungry. This is much more time efficient than other characters needing to craft crockpots/bird cages then cook for spoilable healing.

Pro tip: Healing salves > noobie crockpot healing food, for all characters not just wormwood!

Bonus is when you mine rocks for healing salves you also get nitre for compost wrap so you have double the amount of non-spoilable healing as wormwood, the only character with a meaningful downside is Warly.

So please stop quoting wormwood as this grand example of a "balanced" downside, even before skilltrees wormwood was an upgraded wendy with OP  bramble husk that he could make to give everyone AOE damage.

 

Edited January 19 by Gashzer

[reddocc]

Spoiler

45 minutes ago, Gashzer said:

Wormwood not taking any health change from food is a buff not a downside.

Crockpot/healing food is insanely overrated. Wormwood can craft bramble husk, walk into a spider quarry during dusk, hold f with spear and bramble husk to tank kill about 100 spiders. 

Use the silk to craft both tent/siesta to heal non-boss damage, turn spider glands into non-spoilable healing salves for boss fights and just ram raw monster meat down your throat if you are hungry. This is much more time efficient than other characters needing to craft crockpots/bird cages then cook for spoilable healing.

Pro tip: Healing salves > noobie crockpot healing food

Bonus is when you mine rocks for healing salves you also get nitre for compost wrap so you have double the amount of non-spoilable healing as wormwood, the only character with a meaningful downside is Warly.

So please stop quoting wormwood as this grand example of a "balanced" downside, even before skilltrees wormwood was an upgraded wendy with OP  bramble husk that he could make to give everyone AOE damage.

 

 

I don't think it's because that perk is a heavy downside that people call it balanced, I think it is because it's a meaningful downside that encourages variety, unlike Warly's forced variety summited into submission by meaty stews.

In my opinion the characters with meaningful downsides in this game  that encourage a different playstyle are; Walter, Wormwood, Wigfrid(no, teas for Wigfrid threads please), and Wurt(wurt also has the mini downside to not be able to trade with pk but merm king is generous enough)

Theres also the every day downsides that include low sanity characters; Wes, Willow, Webber, Wx and Wigfrid (not really).

The ones with low health: Wes, Maxwell(beefalo gaming addicted) and also Wx.

Characters I forgot to mention that to me have no meaningful downsizes are: Wilson (duh), Wendy, Webber, Wickerbottom(secretly an upside), Wolfgang, Woodie, Winona and Wortox.

 

Another character with A meaningful downsize to me is Wheeler from Hamlet. Less inventory space by default. The game also rewards you if you free your inventory.

 

To me Warly's downside is just annoying, like Wagstaff's in Hamlet, but at least Wagstaff has a cool design and his alternatives are pretty good.

I Think Warly probably will get a bonus stats for eating new foods and strong bonus for keeping his streak maybe gathering efficiency or speed.

Spoiler

We don't talk about Wanda (Inventory management?????/botherations I forgot???)

 

Edited January 19 by reddocc
I don't play wx a lot I like dying and regurgitating my gears for further consumption