What i, as a player, would find compelling in a warly skill tree

[qwp18]

As a disclaimer before getting into it: I do not like warly, for a multitude of reasons I really do not like warly, at all, from his upsides to his downsides, I do not enjoy him. However I believe skill trees should play more into what makes a character fun and unique rather than diminishing their downsides, those moments in gameplay that work should be expanded on more than anything, and while i do again truly dont like (hate) warly, there is one thing which made me feel a very different type of dopamine i havent had in this game, and it is the interaction with warly's surroundings that no one else has

To elaborate; this happened to me while I was in the caves and particularly in a very sticky situation, (iirc) with no more light in my lantern  but with glow berries present, and i made Glow Berry Mousse, now this isnt too special, especially when read on paper, but in-game it really really had a click to it, unlike any character in the game i actually interacted with the environment in a way unique to them which was insanely cool, its the only time his kit clicked with me because its the first time ive ever actually found a use for his portable crock pot being unique to him

I really hope the skill tree leans into this, into his crock pots actually being portable and adapting to the envoirment around him, a gameplay loop that feels very dynamic and immersive. Going out of your way to reap benefits such as volt goat jelly is, eh, its whatever its not bad or anything but using your own knowledge and surroundings is exceptionally fun. I dont like bringing up other games in the forums but its the same principle of design that minecraft struggles with, discovery of certain setpieces and structures is fun, its exploration, actively going out of your way to seeking it can often be tedious, and i really believe giving more reasons to warlys crockpots being portable, and more recepies that interact with your current specific envoirments, really gives a great sense of interacting with your envoirment

I dont have any specific ideas for what a skill tree could add to expand on this, but i really think its important to highlight the potential with warly here and i wanted to shout out what me as someone who DOESNT like warly, actually loved when I played as him, I really hope klei can lean into this design and archetype because I think it could make a lot of people enjoy warly that flat out do not, and while I do struggle to see how a skill tree could make him lean into this more, I really wanted to get it out there

[Cuernito.]

You know that actual warly is more like a set up character? i mean he needs to make some farms to start with the real power of the master chef which is in my opinion kind of meh. I think most people agree with you that warly needs to be able to cook on the go, maybe not getting the most powerful recipes from the start but at least having an easier time cooking while exploring instead of rushing farms. I have to say Warly is my third pick, i really love the man and i started playing as him cause i wanted to learn all recipes in the game but even warly didnt make me want to learn about the recipes, instead i just learned about the most filling recipes, it is kinda sad that the master chef does not have something to help players have an easier time with recipes, instead i was using the wiki all the time when i played him first time.

A good idea to make warly easier for new people without removing his downside could be a new hud that shows what recipes could the warly player make with the ingredients in his inventory, like if i have 2 carrots and 2 berries the hud shows the recipes you can make with those ingredients. Sometimes you have the ingredients but you dont know which is the best recipe to do with them and you have to learn all the info... or check the wiki, and i think maybe if warly could be like a mini wiki of crockpot recipes that alone could make him a lot better to use for new players.

Edited March 14 by NekoSoulx

[Mike23Ua]

I will put this into the shortest TL:DR I can muster up. WintersFeast with the tables, masonry oven, and a group of players being able to “Feast” on the foods is more in depth and fun then Warly the “Cook”

[Cruvimaster]

I'd bet that most people who want Warly's skill tree only want it to buff their characters with new dishes, and therefore don't care about his gameplay.

[DegenerateFurry]

qwip18 response:

Spoiler

 

3 hours ago, qwp18 said:

As a disclaimer before getting into it: I do not like warly, for a multitude of reasons I really do not like warly, at all, from his upsides to his downsides, I do not enjoy him. 

Not a great start...

3 hours ago, qwp18 said:

However I believe skill trees should play more into what makes a character fun and unique rather than diminishing their downsides, those moments in gameplay that work should be expanded on more than anything

I agree for sure with this.

3 hours ago, qwp18 said:

To elaborate; this happened to me while I was in the caves and particularly in a very sticky situation, (iirc) with no more light in my lantern  but with glow berries present, and i made Glow Berry Mousse, now this isnt too special, especially when read on paper, but in-game it really really had a click to it, unlike any character in the game i actually interacted with the environment in a way unique to them which was insanely cool, its the only time his kit clicked with me because its the first time ive ever actually found a use for his portable crock pot being unique to him

I really hope the skill tree leans into this, into his crock pots actually being portable and adapting to the envoirment around him, a gameplay loop that feels very dynamic and immersive. 

You can also see Warly making use of the portability of his crock pot in such cases as making steamed twigs for your not-yet-tamed beefalo whenever and wherever you want (which makes it tame a lot easier since its hunger being above 0 massively slows obedience decay, meaning you have to feed it less overall), or especially in spring when you can make fish cordon bleu to become instantly waterproof and lose all wetness. Oh, and he can make healing food whenever he wants - a carrot, a tallbird egg, and two sticks makes a Tall Scotch Eggs, or you can make trail mix with birchnuts and berries for a quick and easy +30 HP a bite. 

3 hours ago, qwp18 said:

I really hope the skill tree leans into this, into his crock pots actually being portable and adapting to the envoirment around him, a gameplay loop that feels very dynamic and immersive. Going out of your way to reap benefits such as volt goat jelly is, eh, its whatever its not bad or anything but using your own knowledge and surroundings is exceptionally fun. I dont like bringing up other games in the forums but its the same principle of design that minecraft struggles with, discovery of certain setpieces and structures is fun, its exploration, actively going out of your way to seeking it can often be tedious, and i really believe giving more reasons to warlys crockpots being portable, and more recepies that interact with your current specific envoirments, really gives a great sense of interacting with your envoirment

Could be interesting? I've had a few ideas of my own along those lines, namely a couple of sailing-related dishes, one that gives him a Horizon Expandinator effect while on a boat and another that makes him do all sailing-related actions twice as efficiently (better rowing, faster sail management, faster anchor-raising, turn boat faster, etc). I do think Warly's biggest problem overall is needing to set up a lot to become powerful, but not having any better ways than any other character to get set up. 

 

2 hours ago, NekoSoulx said:

I have to say Warly is my third pick, i really love the man and i started playing as him cause i wanted to learn all recipes in the game but even warly didnt make me want to learn about the recipes, instead i just learned about the most filling recipes, it is kinda sad that the master chef does not have something to help players have an easier time with recipes, instead i was using the wiki all the time when i played him first time.

A good idea to make warly easier for new people without removing his downside could be a new hud that shows what recipes could the warly player make with the ingredients in his inventory, like if i have 2 carrots and 2 berries the hud shows the recipes you can make with those ingredients. Sometimes you have the ingredients but you dont know which is the best recipe to do with them and you have to learn all the info... or check the wiki, and i think maybe if warly could be like a mini wiki of crockpot recipes that alone could make him a lot better to use for new players.

Yeah, the Craft Pot client-sided mod's excellent since it lets you browse a list of all recipes and shows you more relevant ones based on what you've put into the crock pot. It'd be excellent if Klei did what they did with Geometric Placement and added it to the game, but y'know, just for Warly since he's the only survivor who'd actually know all this stuff. It could be a good perk to put at the base of his skill tree, but it'd also make a nice addition to his base kit.

59 minutes ago, Mike23Ua said:

I will put this into the shortest TL:DR I can muster up. WintersFeast with the tables, masonry oven, and a group of players being able to “Feast” on the foods is more in depth and fun then Warly the “Cook”

While the feasting mechanic here is neat, I don't really see how it's more in-depth than Warly's normal cooking? It's different recipes for a little stat recovery over a brief time and it scales more with player count. Honestly, seems even simpler than all the different recipes for different stats normal cooking has, or especially Warly's differing buffs from foods and spices. 

I'd be happy to see Warly get some sort of communal feasting table that restores higher stats with higher player count like this as a perk, but I feel like few players would actually use it since it'd require more coordination than a random lobby would ever have, and it's also not useful solo except as decoration. 

 

27 minutes ago, Cruvimaster said:

I'd bet that most people who want Warly's skill tree only want it to buff their characters with new dishes, and therefore don't care about his gameplay.

I have literally never seen this sentiment in discussions of Warly skill trees and I typically see the opposite: players advocating for ways to make Warly less of a swap character, often through giving him unique new abilities. 

Edited March 14 by DegenerateFurry

[Cruvimaster]

25 minutes ago, DegenerateFurry said:

I have literally never seen this sentiment in discussions of Warly skill trees and I typically see the opposite: players advocating for ways to make Warly less of a swap character, often through giving him unique new abilities. 

No one is going to publicly say that. I remember the case of Winona (beta), where people complained that they couldn't use her items with other characters, and various other topics suggesting that other characters might be able to use all of her machines without restrictions, including teleportation.

Edited March 14 by Cruvimaster

[DegenerateFurry]

22 minutes ago, Cruvimaster said:

No one is going to publicly say that. I remember the case of Winona (beta), where people complained that they couldn't use her items with other characters, and various other topics suggesting that other characters might be able to use all of her machines without restrictions, including teleportation.

Awfully conspiratorial of you to suggest that everyone secretly has hidden motives here.

But, as someone who mains Warly, I don't think there's any viable way to actually make it so that using him as a swap character provides no benefit at all without inconveniencing Warly players. Like, let's look at this practically: what are Klei's options for doing that?

Make only Warly benefit from his unique dishes/spices.
Terrible idea, utterly terrible. This would mean I couldn't provide my teammates with buffs in a multiplayer setting. I can add 20% extra damage per player currently just with chili flakes, that needs to not go away. I also like being able to give the eyebrellaless players fish cordon bleu in spring, and one of Warly's best beefalo synergies is giving it 33% damage reduction with garlicky steamed twigs (he's literally the only character other than Wigfrid who can make a beefalo tankier). 

Make dish effects and spices not work if a Warly isn't on the server.
This is the Winona catapult approach. It could work? But I'm not sure how that'd work with the caves and surface being different shards, and it's also a bit hard to justify in-universe since it's still the same dish regardless of whether Warly's around or not. Still, if Klei's taking a hard-line stance against swap characters, I could see it. Though if they do that, I want them to get rid of Maxwell's ability to use Wickerbottom's books too, which I want them to do anyway. 

Make spice dishes and dishes with effects impossible to bundle-wrap.
Irrelevant after postgame, polar bearger bin exists. 

Actually make Warly have unique things other than his dishes and spices so that people will want to play him instead.
By far the best option. It keeps everyone happy. 

Make it so that non-Warly characters only benefit from spices and dish effects if Warly manually feeds it to them. 
Another option that allows a hard-line no swap characters stance and actually works fairly well since it doubles down on Warly's support role, though it'd be slightly more inconvenient. I wouldn't mind the extra incentive for my team to let me finish cooking before starting boss fights, that said. 

1 hour ago, Cruvimaster said:

I'd bet that most people who want Warly's skill tree only want it to buff their characters with new dishes, and therefore don't care about his gameplay.

Also, let me just address this here: how often do you see people who use Warly as a swap character use any of his dishes other than spiced volt goat chaud-froid? Like, do people regularly make asparagazpacho and hot dragon chili salad as Warly, bundle it up, and carry it around as Wolfgang just to ignore summer and winter respectively? Do people do that with fish cordon bleu instead of making an eyebrella or rain coat? Does anyone even bother with honey-spiced foods when using Warly as a swap character? 

I do not believe that people would, say, swap to Warly just to make some dishes that make you do sailing stuff faster or that give you extra seeds from crop harvests, or other non-combat effects like those.

Edited March 14 by DegenerateFurry

[Cruvimaster]

Just now, DegenerateFurry said:

Awfully conspiratorial of you to suggest that everyone secretly has hidden motives here.

But, as someone who mains Warly, I don't think there's any viable way to actually make it so that using him as a swap character provides no benefit at all. Like, let's look at this practically: what are Klei's options for doing that?

Make only Warly benefit from his unique dishes/spices.
Terrible idea, utterly terrible. This would mean I couldn't provide my teammates with buffs in a multiplayer setting. I can add 20% extra damage per player currently just with chili flakes, that needs to not go away. I also like being able to give the eyebrellaless players fish cordon bleu in spring, and one of Warly's best beefalo synergies is giving it 33% damage reduction (he's literally the only character other than Wigfrid who can make a beefalo tankier). 
Only non-awful way to do this option would be to make it so Warly can still buff his buddies if he directly feeds a dish to them.

Make dish effects and spices not work if a Warly isn't on the server.
This is the Winona catapult approach. It could work? But I'm not sure how that'd work with the caves and surface being different shards, and it's also a bit hard to justify in-universe since it's still the same dish regardless of whether Warly's around or not. Still, if Klei's taking a hard-line stance against swap characters, I could see it. Though if they do that, I want them to get rid of Maxwell's ability to use Wickerbottom's books too, which I want them to do anyway. 

Make spice dishes and dishes with effects impossible to bundle-wrap.
Irrelevant after postgame, polar bearger bin exists. 

Actually make Warly have unique things other than his dishes and spices so that people will want to play him instead.
By far the best option. It keeps everyone happy. 

Also, let me just address this here: how often do you see people who use Warly as a swap character use any of his dishes other than spiced volt goat chaud-froid? Like, do people regularly make asparagazpacho and hot dragon chili salad as Warly, bundle it up, and carry it around as Wolfgang just to ignore summer and winter respectively? Do people do that with fish cordon bleu instead of making an eyebrella or rain coat? Does anyone even bother with honey-spiced foods when using Warly as a swap character? 

I do not believe that people would, say, swap to Warly just to make some dishes that make you do sailing stuff faster or that give you extra seeds from crop harvests, or other non-combat effects like those.

Ultimately, none of that matters. The devs don't build the Skill Tree based on community suggestions, but rather on original ideas (they can make changes in the beta version, but not during creation). And they've already realized that this approach of having a character with the sole function of supporting others was a failure with Warly.

7 minutes ago, DegenerateFurry said:

Awfully conspiratorial of you to suggest that everyone secretly has hidden motives here.

You're pretending to be blind. That's the only explanation. We even have a thread so that Warly's Crock Pots can be used by other characters.

[DegenerateFurry]

17 minutes ago, Cruvimaster said:

Ultimately, none of that matters. The devs don't build the Skill Tree based on community suggestions, but rather on original ideas (they can make changes in the beta version, but not during creation). And they've already realized that this approach of having a character with the sole function of supporting others was a failure with Warly.

Except community feedback was massively influential in the Walter skill tree update? I dunno why you're here if you don't think there's any point to discussions. 

17 minutes ago, Cruvimaster said:

You're pretending to be blind. That's the only explanation. We even have a thread so that Warly's Crock Pots can be used by other characters.

It's not on the first page of General Discussion or the beta forum. I can't even find it searching "crock pot" in this or the beta forum. Is it really old?

Edited March 14 by DegenerateFurry

[Cuernito.]

46 minutes ago, Cruvimaster said:

No one is going to publicly say that. I remember the case of Winona (beta), where people complained that they couldn't use her items with other characters, and various other topics suggesting that other characters might be able to use all of her machines without restrictions, including teleportation.

I remember that too cause i main Winona and i was active during that beta, and i dont think its as bad as you are making it sound, most people wanted winona to be able to teleport people with her, other few wanted to be able to teleport using the telebrella but with big restrictions like uisng all the power of the gen or having a cooldown. But anyway, Winona is not the same as Warly, she was never a great or good team character, some few people just make a catapults set up and change to never be Winona again in life before the skill tree. While Warly has always been a top "team character". And do remember that wortox skill tree was split in 2, good wortox(team oriented build/supportive) and bad wortox(solo/powerful build), so i dont see why Warly shouldnt be able to get great team skills too.

14 minutes ago, DegenerateFurry said:

Except community feedback was massively influential in the Walter skill tree update? I dunno why you're here if you don't think there's any point to discussions.

True i do remember that one too, they made a lot of final changes to his skill tree but that beta took a lot to finish. Hope Warly get something good and fun from the start for both team supportive play and solo play.

33 minutes ago, Cruvimaster said:

Ultimately, none of that matters. The devs don't build the Skill Tree based on community suggestions, but rather on original ideas (they can make changes in the beta version, but not during creation). And they've already realized that this approach of having a character with the sole function of supporting others was a failure with Warly.

I trust klei even with all this rift weird stuff, they are smart enough to know what suggestion is good and what is not.

[Cruvimaster]

In parallel to this debate, the existence of Warly, in my view, is more of a problem than a solution for the game. Let me explain.

Klei did a great job reworking the farming system. However, the practical result was that the product of all this (dishes) became irrelevant. There was never a project to rework the dishes, everything being limited to the same hunger, sanity, and life effects (with some exceptions).

That's where the problem with Warly's existence begins. Any new effect a recipe has (for example, night vision) has to be concentrated in the hands of a single character to justify the existence of a cook.

This isn't something only related to Warly, but to so many other characters that Klei removes general mechanics from and transfers to a single character.

21 minutes ago, DegenerateFurry said:

Except community feedback was massively influential in the Walter skill tree update? I dunno why you're here if you don't think there's any point to discussions. 

And the devs were so traumatized by this update that they stopped making skill trees for a long time. Only now are they going to return to it. LOL

[Cuernito.]

1 minute ago, Cruvimaster said:

In parallel to this debate, the existence of Warly, in my view, is more of a problem than a solution for the game. Let me explain.

Klei did a great job reworking the farming system. However, the practical result was that the product of all this (dishes) became irrelevant. There was never a project to rework the dishes, everything being limited to the same hunger, sanity, and life effects (with some exceptions).

That's where the problem with Warly's existence begins. Any new effect a recipe has (for example, night vision) has to be concentrated in the hands of a single character to justify the existence of a cook.

This isn't something only related to Warly, but to so many other characters that Klei removes general mechanics from and transfers to a single character.

I think they made the rework to farming cause the old system was so boring and bad that almost no one used it. While the actual crockpot system is still pretty fun and solid. And idk how you play the game but the dishes are not irrelevant in my experience, most people use the crockpot, the strongest way to get heal, sanity and hunger are in the crockpot system and lets be honest there is a lot of stuff in this game that can be ignored and the player is gonna be fine, some people ignore farming and they are good, some other ignore ranching or hunting and they are fine, i personally dont like to make bee boxes and i usually ignore them till the very end

[Maxil20]

2 minutes ago, NekoSoulx said:

I think they made the rework to farming cause the old system was so boring and bad that almost no one used it.

In case people forgot, the old farming system was so bad you needed to sacrifice 2/3rds of your harvest to reliably sustain your crops. This is why it was often viewed as a crutch and very few people relied on it, and doubly so if you weren't Wormwood.

The crockpot works because you don't lose 2/3rds of your ingredients to sustain using the crockpot. You just plug 4 items in and get pretty decent dish results if you know what you're doing. It even got buffed considerably thanks to the polar bin to remain viable in the lategame, as that's when dishes fell off as opposed to food sources like honey.

Regarding the post itself, I still feel this is the gold standard when it comes from addressing problems with Warly and suggesting some solutions. The reason people don't play him is he fundamentally gets nothing special from his buffs when only playing as him, let alone general boosts to incentivize his ingredient harvesting (he still needs to go the same farming route as everyone else, and 25% goat horn drops are especially awful with him). I really don't think it would be particularly challenging to address that and have both parties of people who stay as him to have stronger benefits and the people that see him for his buff foods to remain unphased.

[Cruvimaster]

17 minutes ago, NekoSoulx said:

While the actual crockpot system is still pretty fun and solid.

The best recipes in the game for all 3 stats don't necessarily have to come from farms. Is that something solid to you?

But as I said, the rework of the farming system was excellent. It has an impact on worlds with multiple players. In solo play, the impact is quite small, since meat-based foods are abundant and very strong in the game.

Edited March 14 by Cruvimaster

[Cruvimaster]

On the other hand, I commend the developers for their work on Pearl, adding new effects through teas for all characters instead of concentrating everything on just one.

[qwp18]

13 hours ago, DegenerateFurry said:

Not a great start...

Its very fair to react that way haha but none of the feedback i ever give is intended to be malicious or biased in any way, i think its good to throw into the ring what a person, that doesnt like warly, finds very satisfying in his character even if its very few and far between. Im also a big fan of the steamed twigs example you gave, thats really cool and its the type of stuff I wanna see more of in warly, ultimately hes the only way to cook crackpot dishes on the go, and encouraging and exploring that fully would be great

 

13 hours ago, DegenerateFurry said:

Actually make Warly have unique things other than his dishes and spices so that people will want to play him instead.
By far the best option. It keeps everyone happy. 

In addition to this, and feel free to flame me if this is a bad idea, would it not make sense for warly to benefit slightly more from his own dishes? Not to make it worse for his teammates but to make it more beneficial to him specifically, itd especially be seen that way if it is a skill rather than base kit, because its an additional benefit so it cant be possibly seen as a downside for using his stuff as other characters (whether this would or wouldnt actually be a good idea for a skill is a whole completely different discussion tho...)

[linabagel]

25 minutes ago, qwp18 said:

In addition to this, and feel free to flame me if this is a bad idea, would it not make sense for warly to benefit slightly more from his own dishes? Not to make it worse for his teammates but to make it more beneficial to him specifically, itd especially be seen that way if it is a skill rather than base kit, because its an additional benefit so it cant be possibly seen as a downside for using his stuff as other characters (whether this would or wouldnt actually be a good idea for a skill is a whole completely different discussion tho...)

Just like Winona, her teammates can activate the Catapult, but she knows how to use these props even better. 

A good chef surely knows how to appreciate delicious food, doesn't he? When he eats the special dishes for the first time, he will get a 110% gain, and it will return to 100% the second time.