WX78: Please raise the Floor, don't lower the Ceiling

[ArcAngela]

Hello, this is a summary of what I will talk about because I will talk big; I would like to go over game and character design, introduce WX-78 to that scene and see how they perform in this topic, and draw conclusions based on what's been done/rebalanced around them.
 

Design, Ceilings and Floors

Starting with the title, what is "CEILING"? In this context I am speaking of characters in a general term; their design, strengths and weaknesses, and how they interact with the game they are in.
The character has a point where they are at their "weakest", which can be defined by their own downsides, unfortunate scenarios, bad luck or even at times the player's skill. In these cases, the player does not have "control" of the game, their actions are not to control the environment they surround themselves in, it's an attempt to even the odds or turn them in your favor.

This is design lingo, when playing you don't "feel out of control of your character", you "feel powerless in the middle of this chaos", or that the situation is dire and you have limited to time to think and limited actions to find footing so you don't die (lose all control or impact you can have as a player on the game).

This "weakest state" can be considered the entry point of a character in sandbox games like DST and sometimes this is their floor; the minimum you need to adapt or put up with to enjoy the character you're playing as. Some people cannot stand certain downsides (i.e: Wigfrid's meat-only diet). But we don't think about their "weakest state" while playing, we think about Wigfrid starving or finding herself without any good food options at a certain point (Lunar Islands, for example).
It is important to note here that Wigfrid's strengths are not nullified at her weakest state, she can be starving and still maintain her identity of combatant.

But I, together with many people, would argue that what really makes you pick a character over others is IDENTITY and their strengths. A character's identity is paramount to why you picked Wigfrid, you didn't pick her for the carnivore fantasy and the copium that comes with it, you picked her because you like fighting, you like combat and you like this party-buffer tough fighter identity she excels at delivering.

When Wigfrid is at her strongest it's when her identity and strengths shine the most; in combat. With her signature weapons, geared up teammates and an inventory full of meat and battlesongs ready to smack a giant. This is mostly why people play her, this is mostly why people find her fun! This is when a character reaches their ceiling; where the player's skill with this character is being rewarded and now the player may enjoy the fruits of their labor.

Here's me fighting Crab King this week when two Rockjaws decided to crash the party and completely throw me and my friend off.
I am Wigfrid, I have no control of this situation, my boat is about to die, I'm getting stun-locked by one of the Rockjaws, my buffs are wearing off, I have no ranged options. This is a great example of chaos where my character doesn't necessarily have downsides nor upsides against this situation but I have to rely on my character's strengths and my personal skill to find a way out of this mess, cause I'm still the viking lady, this is the identity I enjoy playing around and I signed up for this struggle.
 

Now comes WX-78

Where do they fit in all of this...? This is the question I'm sure developers can answer better than me, because to me at their core identity, WX-78 has been the "stat crazy" character. Ever since singleplayer with their 400, 200, 300 stats. Ever since their strange new power became an even stronger crazy lightning buff, and ever since their multiplayer rework where they could now scan the world to avoid every threat (but only one at a time).

Now I admit it, I am a WX-78 player, and I have not played nearly as much as I'd like about them. I love their hatred of all living things, I love playing Archipelago mod with them and boss rushing with randomizers, I love their amazing writing and sass. I never liked how weak the Circuits felt and how much gameplay identity they lacked.

I never felt like I was reaching any fantasy or any identity as a player, this comes after putting up with their weakest point, and strongest. Because at their weakest, WX-78 is losing health every second, hoping to get literally hit by lightning because nothing else from this character will work to save me and all my strengths have been disabled by wetness. It is an unforgiving death sentence that I wouldn't trade that for anything. Because a data-gathering microbe-hating transhumanist non-binary robot feels amazing to play when I "outsmart" a situation by adapting to it perfectly, even if my tools have always been below average.

WX-78 has always had an interesting floor, but very low ceiling that made them uninteresting and unrewarding to play for long.

This skill tree beta has fixed a lot of these issues almost instantly! With Alpha Beta and Gamma distinctions, amplified further with Chassis skills, I feel like I honestly can outsmart situations and plan ahead and be rewarded with overwhelming odds in my favor, and this feels GOOD, this even felt a bit nostalgic like back in singleplayer. I feel like I am being rewarded for being 3-steps ahead of the challenges that are after me, and I equally feel scared the moment I'm caught off-guard and watch my Charge slowly disable every strength I've relied on.

I can confidently say that WX-78 right now with their skill tree has a strong min-maxer multitasker generalist identity, where they don't exactly have specific strengths besides an insane level of adaptability purely focused on raw stats and wits. And downsides that can still effectively disable whatever specializations and plans you may have had.
 

Unfortunately, we lowered the ceiling...

I saw this coming from a mile away; Alpha circuits are now less than decent if not undesirable, you do not get them because you want to make a crazy build, you get them so you can lower how painful it is to have extremely low base stats. I understand the devs warned the community that they'll be tuning down their stats, I also understand that previous circuits were balanced to compete with each other for one single tray of circuits, not 3. But... I am disappointed nonetheless, because instead of nerfing the floor, we nerfed the ceiling, the fantasy of the stat crazy character is underwhelming once again, the identity is less rewarding, once again.

Not once did we consider the floor, not once did we adjust the creatures required or the recipe costs for circuits, not once did we go over what the real problem of Alpha Circuits were and why Health was overwhelmingly more popular than Hunger and Sanity.

Maybe I should've been vocal about my thoughts from the start, but maybe now this holds a little more weight; Please just allow WX-78 to keep their identity as the stat crazy survivor. 550 Health will always look "overpowered" in comparison to anyone else, but in a vacuum, stat increases are boring. You know what isn't boring? IDENTITY. It was never about +40 sanity or the Petals it required, it could be +50, it could be +20, it wouldn't have mattered at all if it did not create or reinforce an identity and thematic that feels fun and rewarding, which currently it doesn't.

We lowered from 125 base stats down to 100, EVERYONE LOVED IT, why? Because this is the floor, WX-78 players don't care about the floor and don't mind if the floor is raised nearly as much as the CEILING! Because we put up with these downsides for the sake of the ceiling, the potential and identity this character can deliver and how it stands out from the other survivors.

Likewise, every buff in this beta compared to current live WX can still be completely shutdown by Wetness, their weakness remains a punishing downside. You can have all 3 arrays of circuits filled to the brim, the moment wetness builds up that's all gone, and if you were relying on these circuits you're gone as well.

People loved 30% Armor with +500 Health because it held synergy with other circuits like Electrification and allowed a Tank identity. People cared about Gastro circuits because when paired with Gamma's Nutribrick, Beta's Refrigerant and their own upside of ignoring spoilage they created a very conservative Survivalist identity. Likewise, people cared about Beanbooster because it always held sanity perks as well, and equally didn't care about Processing circuits because... It never enabled an identity of any kind.

+550 Base Health drew attention and there were many flashy clips of WX-78 soloing by "standing still", and some people will defend that this is an understandable rebalance, but I'm sorry, what did it take for them to reach this potential? Take that away and what else can the character provide? Because let's rationalize for a moment; is this fun? Yes! Is this fair? No! Why? Because it's possible or because it feels cheap?

Here is a clip of me soloing Deerclops with only circuits and a Shadow Maul after the alpha nerfs, yes it is flashy and seems strong! But I'm sorry, if I'm not having fun with this character, this isn't even a real scenario. Because I don't even reach this point of the game where I have a fully leveled Shadow Maul and all these circuits. I mean hell, I didn't even use the blocking circuit because it's so underpowered and detached from other circuits that it doesn't help a Tank identity despite being designed for tanking.

If the reward for the player's work and skill doesn't feel fair, then make the reward fair, not less of a reward!

If we nerf the ceiling, the character has less potential, less areas they can shine in and adapt to, less skill expression from the players, and overall makes for a worse experience.

And all of that for the sake of... of what? What are we trading-off here if all WX-78 does is upgrade and specialize? Why did we do any of this? I'm having subpar Health upgrades because Super-Hardy couldn't have costed Red Gems? Or a Life-Giving Amulet? Why is this second-tier upgrade to the Hardy Circuit barely an upgrade that hardly rewards me even with the skills for alpha circuits, instead of just... Giving me more to do with the character, challenging me to reach higher resources for higher circuits and higher rewards to the point they enable new specializations and archetypes, like it already challenges me by requesting a Nurse Spider scan to begin with.

Speed Circuit remains the best-case example of this! It asks for me to scan a Rook, and to get a Gear. As the player, I control how I approach this challenge; I can get lucky and find one in the surface or venture into the Ruins for one. As for the gear there are many ways to find one and the game asks me to just find one, I have all the freedom and skill expression in the world to approach this however I'd like. The big cost means I must treat this Circuit with respect and really think twice before dying or removing it, and the reward has always been worth it! It enables so much freedom because 25% speed is fantastic, 3 of these have always enabled a Speedster/Scout identity despite having diminishing rewards.

Now imagine it was 10% speed and only costed Carrots... Wow, it barely makes a difference to have these. I'd need my entire Beta array just to enable this identity again, which limits my specializations with other Beta circuits, and all of that because I just... couldn't have 25%? What would it need to cost me for me to have 25%? Luckily, we already have this answer.

It's really funny to me how we have the solution right there, included within WX-78 already, we just need to apply this consistently across the CIRCUIT skills and respective circuit stats.
 

CONCLUSIONS

We are currently stuck at a "dial" problem, WX-78 stats feel too strong, Devs keep adjusting the dial and lowering them and raising them and hoping it threads the needle when the problem was never on the dial itself but rather what does it enable and what is it good for.

Please raise the floor, don't lower the ceiling. Here's my suggestion; Readjust the Alpha Circuits, bring back rewarding armor resistances or make them scale off of max health but require Blocking Circuit, make all circuits like Super-Hardy require more than just 3 Spider Glands, make these upgrades feel worth upgrading and give a real sense of progression, rework them so that you get not only a reward, but reinforce an identity!

Illumination Circuit feels always too strong? Make that pitiful recipe a bit more difficult! (which you did! But probably should be more if we're still lowering that light dial further and further)

In that very screenshot earlier I helped a 20h total playtime Wurt player who wanted to complete the Trident Quest for the merm king, They didn't care about how difficult the challenge was, they only cared about how rewarding was the completion and the journey of that quest!

WX-78 players will gladly go the extra mile if it means we keep the strong identity of becoming the ultimate life-form.

Make the tier-1 Alpha Circuits feel like semi-decent stat raises at the beginning of the game, and their respective tier-2 upgrades feel like a sizeable upside that follows the player's progression and can open doors to synergize with other circuits, archetypes and specializations.

I liked Tank WX-78, I think a stat crazy character should be allowed to Tank if I specialized on this one goal. Their whole identity relies on adaptability, data-gathering and planning. And I enjoy having this unique min-max specialization that no other survivor has! I wish I had more than just Tanking to vouch for, but we unfortunately did not explore sanity or hunger nearly as much as we did the "Dial" of health and armor.

+500 Health is a lot to heal if you don't have the right ingredients, resources and tools to upkeep, and I still have 100 Sanity and Hunger, I will still go insane very fast during tougher fights, I will still need to eat and I will waste a ton of Hunger from foods just to heal it back up.
I enjoy being rewarded for adapting to this identity and even further enjoy multitasking with another Chassis to upkeep said Tank, it feels like I'm the whole Kerbal Space Program, and I love it, and I love what you did with this skill tree, but the stat monster character currently doesn't feel like a monster because of a dial. I don't feel like my power is scaling when I go through the usual scanning quests just for 100 bonus health. I don't feel like getting +100 Sanity, or +150 is building up to anything at all.

The issue is not on the ceiling being too high. It's on how it enables adaptability and how much does the player need to work to reach these strengths. Please Klei, bring back the old stats and reconsider why Processing and Gastro weren't as popular, and what can you adjust to enable these circuits to feel fun and worth the player's time.

This suggestion is not exclusive to Alpha circuits because I see how limiting Gammas ended up becoming rather than reinforcing synergies and opening up doors to clever applications of the player's skill and knowledge. Still there is potential here, as displayed by me using Shadow Maul to spin to win, even if completely unrealistic and unreliable. I wish I could spin to win with any sharp weapon though.

Edited April 6 by ArcAngela
I wish I could spin to win with any sharp weapon though

[Cheggf]

The floor and the ceiling are both way higher. I don't know why you guys keep comparing the stat circuits to the stat circuits on live. Literally nobody is using the stat circuits on live. They essentially do not exist. They're basically being added to WX with this skill tree because they're on their own meter now. 

Also, even if they weren't on their own meter, they're still way better because they do things other than boost stats. They give you damage resistance, less hunger drain, insanity resistance, and clothing buffs. Those are huge. They're way better than they are on live.

Edited April 6 by Cheggf

[Ridley]

This seems like advocating high health for meme reasons. Why isn't the marble suit, health circuits, and healing items not enough for the tank build as is? Isn't creating more scenarios where just holding "f" against a boss going to generate more criticism about turning boss fights into jokes?

[Evelo]

I think the goal isn't so much to make WX a stat crazy character but instead a "build-a-bear" character. Which, with the current set of circuits, doesn't fully allow that level of customization. I do think balance is incredibly important in games, and being able to solo enemies without having to move is too crazy. They fixed the bug of that, so now it is fine to be super tanky if you want to. Wigfrid is a tanky character and that's totally fine. Walter is speedy, so can WX. They are about building what you want and with the addition of Chassis's it is now easier to swap between builds without having to unplug and break all your circuits (which is odd Chassis is locked behind the skill tree instead of baseline because it feeds into that "build-a-bear" theme).

I do agree in how some circuits are too easy to come by, especially the upgrades. So making those harder to acquire while fulfilling that specialization power is cool. I think the nerfs, overall, are justified, if the gamma circuits are adjusted to be more rewarding. Over all though, I think compared to the first attempt at the "build-a-survivor" with WX's refresh, this is much better and allows that flexibility of choice, even if some of the skills are odd for existing.

[viblym]

7 minutes ago, ArcAngela said:

Here is a clip of me soloing Deerclops with only circuits and a Shadow Maul after the alpha nerfs, yes it is flashy and seems strong! But I'm sorry, if I'm not having fun with this character, this isn't even a real scenario. Because I don't even reach this point of the game where I have a fully leveled Shadow Maul and all these circuits. I mean hell, I didn't even use the blocking circuit because it's so underpowered and detached from other circuits that it doesn't help a Tank identity despite being designed for tanking.

Honest example, I really do tire of people with glossy clips of spawned in items and enemies showing off stuff like this, it's not accurate to gameplay. It's not indicative of what you'd realistically do. Maul is one of the best weapons in the game (I'd argue it is the best weapon based on its damage and lifesteal) so it's easy to get caught up in "Look at WX's new circuit! They can deal so much damage!" excluding that fact. Even for what it is I hardly even see Maul getting used for the minute downside it has (needing to be fed and levelled and being rather lategame). So many examples of "raw power" exist in that "I'm testing beta in a creative mode test server" vacuum. 

I use Super Processing Circuits and Dronemaster circuits as WX pre skill tree. I use WX with those circuits with their skill tree. Do I struggle with sanity? No. In fact I hardly doubt they're really helping me stay sane as I tend to just.. not go insane anyways. I like them and yet the sanity circuits don't even change my gameplay until I get the Enlightened Crown. That's still a pretty high bar to pass to even benefit from that high sanity stat. I can tell I have a larger pool to use the crown to my leisure without needing items, but that's the thing. It's just to avoid carrying cooked green or blue caps. It's to avoid having a polar bearger bin full of banana shakes or jelly salads. And by that point in the game I could just have those things. It's a large number, but it's not influencing how I play, it's just giving me a minor convenience, which is how so much of them feels. When they dial back the circuits I just think well I could just play a different character and cook some mushrooms instead of playing WX and do anything else. I could play Wormwood and grow moon shrooms and bloom, and I'd basically already check the boxes for most of what I do with WX. Maybe that's my bad, Klei designed sanity very well, it influences gameplay but it's not like many other imitator game's with "sanity" mechanics that just act as a second health bar. But... the sanity circuits were too good and had to be nerfed anyways ??? Who was even complaining about the modifier? It took a week for people to even find out it existed. 

Stats are funny in that as a new player you care about individual character stats a lot, when you get better at the game you realize stats don't matter! If you can play well you can keep all your stats good. Once you get REALLY good at the game you realize... stats matter a lot. Because you realize which ones annoy you the most. Which is a funny thing. Having less than 150 hunger frustrates some people (not in a genuine anger way, but in a funny way of frustration) because they have a small loss when eating things like Meaty Stew (See Wigfrid with 125 hunger). So I know a few people that use Gastro (myself included... lol) and it's honestly respectable. But then that got kicked back too because idk. Again those exaggerated numbers. It didn't matter before when you could get a funcap and belt of hunger with 3 gastro circuits to survive over a season without eating anything during their initial rework, but it matters now ig. 

I liked the tweak perks of Processing and Gastro because it felt like it opened me up, I didn't feel like I needed to use all of the same circuit to get a value that made me feel like there was a point (Why play the self modulating character if your modulated values are met by just playing a character with better base stats). Now it's like. Ok well I can get a circuit to be on par with everyone else. Or I can go back to only using that one type of circuit. Circuits being split into different types now feels like a trade off now. You can have more circuits but they're not gonna be very good.... for this exact problem and solution. 

[ArcAngela]

12 minutes ago, Ridley said:

This seems like advocating high health for meme reasons. Why isn't the marble suit, health circuits, and healing items not enough for the tank build as is? Isn't creating more scenarios where just holding "f" against a boss going to generate more criticism about turning boss fights into jokes?

I'm actually advocating for Gastro and Processing and how instead of nerfing the dial of Hardy we could've looked back and analyzed why it was preferred as opposed to its counterparts, and once again I defended that the reason for that is because of what it enabled the player to do, what doors it opened and how much of a difference it made to customize your build.

There is hardly a difference between using Processing Circuits because it's 40 sanity and 1 petal, not once not ever was it the topic of discussion when the reality is that this was fighting for the +50 health +5% armor, so we nerfed the one that stood out when the problem was the one that was inconsequential.

[astation]

Couldn’t agree more. It’s absurd to balance the character around an extreme build.

 

The devs have fallen into a vicious cycle: they add powerful new elements to turn WX-78 into a powerhouse, then nerf him until even those extreme build feel mediocre, turning him into a weak character overall.

 

In reality, Circuit upgrades alone could easily support new and engaging playstyles without extra buffs.

 

For example:

 

• Tier 1 Alpha could unlock Health Circuit Mk. II, giving 50 health and 15 armor.
• Tier 2 Alpha could unlock Health Circuit Mk. III, giving 20 health and 3 points of planar damage reduction.

 

This would be far more fun and meaningful than the current system.

 

If the developers keep balancing based on feedback that only care  about extreme builds, I guarantee it will be devastating to WX-78’s experience in public servers.

 

Then If you still want to enjoy playing WX-78, you’ll have no choice but to play with friends in a private server — and run your own mods to fix him.

[LavenderLillie]

I think the current problem with WX-78's design philosophy is that they add circuits to make WX have higher stats or make them better at doing something, then when someone goes all in on doing just that one thing, they see that WX can do that thing really well. And instead of looking at the fact that WX's design philosophy of having the potential to be very powerful at a single thing (if you commit to just that), and saying "this is working, what can we do to make other things like this?", they look at WX doing one thing well and say "they are too good at this one thing, thus it needs to be nerfed" until all circuits are equalized through all being useless and instead of allowing players to pick the circuit that is the most useful in whatever situation they're in, or the most fun for them to use, they instead manufacture a meta by forcing players to pick the circuit that is the "least useless". In essence, the ceiling becomes so low that the height of the floor can never matter, because the circuits are no longer fun.

The initial nerfs on the Alpha circuits were certainly warranted-- Beanbooster was obviously never intended to full heal you, and Hardy giving a grass suit on top of your already powerful armor options was frankly ridiculous. But now the shield and healing are pitiful, and the armor may as well not exist with how low it is. If the armor can't be balanced without nerfing it to the point of obscurity, then why not consider another perk? 50% hunger reduction was too much for some people, but 20% is far too little to dedicate two skill points to-- if somewhere in the middle won't work, then instead of lowering the ceiling indefinitely, try another buff and see if it works better (I would like to see Gastrogain circuits increase the amount of hunger you gain from food instead, to be more similar to the Dapperness buff from the Processing circuits, since some people feel the hunger reduction is too unbalanced either way).

I don't feel like writing a whole essay in this post's comments because I feel like I might as well make my own post if I'm going to do that, but basically, instead of nerfing things if they're too powerful, looking at changing how it works before nerfing it into the ground should be considered, too.

 

And to all of you saying that WX having 600 health is powerful, that's the point. WX is supposed to be able to be the best at any one thing, if they work towards it. This has been WX's design since solo, and should be how it works in DST as well.

[Cheggf]

Just now, LavenderLillie said:

I think the current problem with WX-78's design philosophy is that they add circuits to make WX have higher stats or make them better at doing something, then when someone goes all in on doing just that one thing, they see that WX can do that thing really well. And instead of looking at the fact that WX's design philosophy of having the potential to be very powerful at a single thing (if you commit to just that), and saying "this is working, what can we do to make other things like this?", they look at WX doing one thing well and say "they are too good at this one thing, thus it needs to be nerfed" until all circuits are equalized through all being useless and instead of allowing players to pick the circuit that is the most useful in whatever situation they're in, or the most fun for them to use, they instead manufacture a meta by forcing players to pick the circuit that is the "least useless". In essence, the ceiling becomes so low that the height of the floor can never matter, because the circuits are no longer fun.

The initial nerfs on the Alpha circuits were certainly warranted-- Beanbooster was obviously never intended to full heal you, and Hardy giving a grass suit on top of your already powerful armor options was frankly ridiculous. But now the shield and healing are pitiful, and the armor may as well not exist with how low it is. If the armor can't be balanced without nerfing it to the point of obscurity, then why not consider another perk? 50% hunger reduction was too much for some people, but 20% is far too little to dedicate two skill points to-- if somewhere in the middle won't work, then instead of lowering the ceiling indefinitely, try another buff and see if it works better (I would like to see Gastrogain circuits increase the amount of hunger you gain from food instead, to be more similar to the Dapperness buff from the Processing circuits, since some people feel the hunger reduction is too unbalanced either way).

I don't feel like writing a whole essay in this post's comments because I feel like I might as well make my own post if I'm going to do that, but basically, instead of nerfing things if they're too powerful, looking at changing how it works before nerfing it into the ground should be considered, too.

 

And to all of you saying that WX having 600 health is powerful, that's the point. WX is supposed to be able to be the best at any one thing, if they work towards it. This has been WX's design since solo, and should be how it works in DST as well.

Dude you can go like a week without eating any food if you stack all the gastrogain circuits and you're pretending like it's useless and they do nothing

[Kvetevk]

1 hour ago, ArcAngela said:

There is hardly a difference between using Processing Circuits because it's 40 sanity and 1 petal, not once not ever was it the topic of discussion when the reality is that this was fighting for the +50 health +5% armor, so we nerfed the one that stood out when the problem was the one that was inconsequential.

Processing circuits are for the weak (new players), if you are not struggling with sanity, then you won't use it.

In the earlygame I like to plug at least 1 to make my stats overall better, making my stats be 180/140/260 just with non-upgraded alpha circuits. Just because some people doesn't value or use it, doesn't mean it won't be used by somebody else.

[Soul7k]

22 minutes ago, Cheggf said:

Dude you can go like a week without eating any food if you stack all the gastrogain circuits and you're pretending like it's useless and they do nothing

that is not super impressive since you still have to pound down almost 3 meaty stew to get back to full hunger when 150 hunger lasts about 2 days on average so about around 5.3 days with 400 hunger or 5.86 days all hunger no betas. you are over embellishing a little over 1 day with the same amount of food and recourse cost

Edited April 6 by Soul7k

[Cheggf]

3 minutes ago, Soul7k said:

that is not super impressive since you still have to pound down almost 3 meaty stew to get back to full hunger when 150 hunger lasts about 2 days on average so about around 5.3 days with 400 hunger or 5.86 days all hunger no betas. you are over embellishing a little over 1 day 

5 days is a work week. 

[Soul7k]

7 minutes ago, Cheggf said:

5 days is a work week. 

ok? the person i quoted also said full stack so it would be 5.86 which is much closer 6

Edited April 6 by Soul7k

[LavenderLillie]

31 minutes ago, Cheggf said:

Dude you can go like a week without eating any food if you stack all the gastrogain circuits and you're pretending like it's useless and they do nothing

The point of the circuits is that you can go without eating. That's what the gastro circuit does. If you stack all of the circuits, you shouldn't have to eat, because you put in all the effort to not have to eat. Being able to have a bloated stat at the cost of ignoring the other stats is what WX's circuits are for.

[Sacco]

22 minutes ago, LavenderLillie said:

The point of the circuits is that you can go without eating. That's what the gastro circuit does. If you stack all of the circuits, you shouldn't have to eat, because you put in all the effort to not have to eat. Being able to have a bloated stat at the cost of ignoring the other stats is what WX's circuits are for.

they shouldn’t make you totally invulnerable to that one stat tho… Surviving almost 6 days without the need to eat is literally making you don’t care about the hunger stat…

[Radicaljoe]

12 minutes ago, Sacco said:

they shouldn’t make you totally invulnerable to that one stat tho… Surviving almost 6 days without the need to eat is literally making you don’t care about the hunger stat…

You're immune to hunger, at the cost of having basically no health or sanity to work with. These are called tradeoffs. Also, this is DST, hunger is like the least impactful stat, food is EVERYWHERE. 
Besides WX is already immune to eating, Just die everytime before you starve and revive using the chassis  

[Evelo]

40 minutes ago, LavenderLillie said:

The point of the circuits is that you can go without eating. That's what the gastro circuit does. If you stack all of the circuits, you shouldn't have to eat, because you put in all the effort to not have to eat. Being able to have a bloated stat at the cost of ignoring the other stats is what WX's circuits are for.

16 minutes ago, Sacco said:

they shouldn’t make you totally invulnerable to that one stat tho… Surviving almost 6 days without the need to eat is literally making you don’t care about the hunger stat…

It is weird to agree with both of you. But as mentioned by Radicaljoe, there is a tradeoff for completely ignoring an entire mechanic of the game. However. As a counter point: Beefalo exist which makes having little health not really matter unfortunately. Damn beefalo... I hate you so... Sanity is an issue, kind of, but considering sanity is based on thresholds, having low max sanity is better since it means you are sane for longer once you kill off a shadow, but it is worse for prolonged fights where sanity is constantly draining, which can be partially offset by the Beta Circuit the Shellbell Circuit, not greatly, just partially.

So while having a huge bonus in one stat is cool, I would prefer if the build variety focused more on what the circuits did, rather than stats. which is where beta and gamma circuits come in, least, in theory.

[Bumber64]

1 hour ago, Cheggf said:

5 days is a work week. 

It's ~47 IRL minutes.

Using 8-minute Constant days is laughable for comparisons.

[Mysterious box]

55 minutes ago, Radicaljoe said:

You're immune to hunger, at the cost of having basically no health or sanity to work with. These are called tradeoffs. Also, this is DST, hunger is like the least impactful stat, food is EVERYWHERE. 
Besides WX is already immune to eating, Just die everytime before you starve and revive using the chassis  

I feel like people underestimate just how much time not eating or needing to produce the materials for food but every so often really does with all hunger circuits maxed out(including the last +1 slot skill) Wx can go 11.5 days without food or 92 minutes at a time not worrying about food. It's true food is everywhere but people overlook just how much time is spent on food in dst. Food comes from harvesting plants and fighting creatures that time spent eats up plenty of time through the combat, harvesting, refertilizing, and even just cooking it. It's easy and abundant but very time consuming when you really think about it and maxing out on it means that entire process is removed for 92 minutes which is or nearly an average game session for some people that circuit cuts out all that work.

Edited April 6 by Mysterious box

[hhhhddh]

11 minutes ago, Evelo said:

So while having a huge bonus in one stat is cool, I would prefer if the build variety focused more on what the circuits did, rather than stats. which is where beta and gamma circuits come in, least, in theory.

Actually I don't think alpha nerf have very bad effect, 160 hp and other nerfs are huge loss but little they influenced(I mean basic stat part, they nerfed alpha skilltree perks too much), but the problem is gammas are not satisfying enough, make the alpha nerf is just a loss.

I like beta circuits a lot, each of them is very interesting and useful. I use super-light and speed on my "main body", I use electric on my "battle body", I use 7 range booster on my "control body", I use nightvision and space on my "ruin body", I use cool on my "fumarole body"

But gamma is not satisfying enough. Sonic is useful in multiplayer game but not very useful in single game. re-digestion is insignificant to WX. Spinning is not finished so I won't judge now. I don't know maybe [warm standby] perk should allow people to active them when they are plugged into a backup? 

And blocking is what gives me the most hope but also the most disappointment. CD is too long, you can't do anything while blocking, not perform well with electric...I really think it has potential to be a perfect team support circuit or a high-skill-required&high-benefit circuit.

For team: it should able to attract the hatred of the surrounding enemies, or enemies will just go fight your team and make blocking useless.

For high-skill: it should totally block damage in like 1 or 2 second, if you block dmg during the time and quit it shouldn't need cool down, if you continue blocking it only provides 80% armor then, and will need to cool down(not being hit during 2 seconds also needs CD). It just like perfect parry in some action games, you end it too early you get punished, you end it too late you gain less, and if you do it perfectly you would be invincible for a second.

I really hope klei make gammas more useful, rather than "Oh they are like extra free circuits so we don't want them to be so useful" but nerf other circuits and skilltree perks in the same time.

[ZeRoboButler]

1 hour ago, Radicaljoe said:

You're immune to hunger, at the cost of having basically no health or sanity to work with. These are called tradeoffs. Also, this is DST, hunger is like the least impactful stat, food is EVERYWHERE. 
Besides WX is already immune to eating, Just die everytime before you starve and revive using the chassis  

 Why even bother with the death in the first place? If you swap to a chassis with no hunger circuits and eat 100 hunger worth of food, you can just switch back to the "fasting" one and reap the benefits since you retain the percentage of your stats on switching, why just throw away the charge on a chassis? 

Not to mention if you do this, you don't have the full amount of chassis on the map, this is a bizarre amount of hoops to go through.

     

[leo920101]

4 hours ago, Cheggf said:

游戏里的上限和下限都高得多。我不明白你们为什么老是拿游戏里的属性电路跟正式服里的属性电路比较。正式服里根本没人用属性电路，它们基本上不存在。它们现在只是因为有了自己的计量表，所以才跟这个技能树一起加到WX里。 

而且，即便它们没有独立的计量条，也依然远胜其他版本，因为它们除了提升属性之外还能提供其他效果。它们能提供伤害抗性、减少饥饿值消耗、提升疯狂抗性，还能强化服装。这些效果非常显著。它们比正式服里的效果好得多。

yeah, that's why I haven't play WX since the rework

if you can't see how boring they're now may that's your problem

43 minutes ago, Mysterious box said:

我觉得大家低估了不吃饭或需要生产食物材料所花费的时间，但实际上，如果所有饥饿回路都升到满级（包括最后一个+1技能槽），Wx可以11.5天不吃饭，或者连续92分钟不用担心食物。食物确实随处可见，但人们往往忽略了在《饥荒联机版》（DST）中，食物究竟花费了多少时间。食物来源于采集植物和战斗，而战斗、采集、施肥，甚至烹饪本身都会耗费大量时间。食物获取简单且丰富，但仔细想想却非常耗时。而将所有饥饿回路升到满级意味着可以省去92分钟的准备时间，这对于一些玩家来说，几乎相当于一个完整的游戏时长。

So you didn’t even read the latest hotfix notes, yet you’re still arguing about character strength here? What’s your problem? It seems you don’t care about the characters at all—you just want to argue.

4 hours ago, Evelo said:

我认为他们的目标并非是把WX打造成一个属性爆炸的角色，而是打造一个“自由组合”的角色。但就目前的电路系统而言，这种自由度还无法完全实现。我认为游戏平衡至关重要，能够单挑敌人而无需移动就太离谱了。他们修复了这个问题，所以现在如果你想打造一个超级肉盾角色，完全没问题。维格弗里德就是一个肉盾角色，这完全没问题。沃尔特速度很快，WX也可以。游戏的核心在于打造你想要的角色，而底盘的加入使得切换配置更加便捷，无需拔掉所有电路（底盘被锁在技能树里而不是基础配置里有点奇怪，因为它更符合“自由组合”的主题）。

我同意某些电路，尤其是升级电路，获取难度过高。因此，在保证角色专精能力的同时，增加获取难度是个不错的选择。我认为，如果伽马电路的收益能够得到提升，那么这些削弱总体上是合理的。不过总的来说，我认为与之前WX刷新机制下“打造幸存者”的尝试相比，现在的版本要好得多，也提供了更多的选择灵活性，即便有些技能的存在显得有些奇怪。

The idea of combining & adapting is perfectly fine.

 

I think most people’s issue isn’t that WX has no usable combinations, but that certain circuits will never appear in any build whatsoever — such as the nerfed health circuit and the electric shock circuit.

 

Also, I personally don’t think it’s a problem that WX lacks high-value combat circuit combinations.

 

However, many people disagree lately.

[Soul7k]

2 hours ago, Sacco said:

they shouldn’t make you totally invulnerable to that one stat tho… Surviving almost 6 days without the need to eat is literally making you don’t care about the hunger stat…

its 6 days without skills. and it isnt free. you are eating the same amount as anyone else just at different times all at once

52 minutes ago, Mysterious box said:

I feel like people underestimate just how much time not eating or needing to produce the materials for food but every so often really does with all hunger circuits maxed out(including the last +1 slot skill) Wx can go 11.5 days without food or 92 minutes at a time not worrying about food. It's true food is everywhere but people overlook just how much time is spent on food in dst. Food comes from harvesting plants and fighting creatures that time spent eats up plenty of time through the combat, harvesting, refertilizing, and even just cooking it. It's easy and abundant but very time consuming when you really think about it and maxing out on it means that entire process is removed for 92 minutes which is or nearly an average game session for some people that circuit cuts out all that work.

this is closer to what I was expecting. 2 weeks seems fine

Edited April 6 by Soul7k

[Sacco]

1 hour ago, Radicaljoe said:

You're immune to hunger, at the cost of having basically no health or sanity to work with. These are called tradeoffs. Also, this is DST, hunger is like the least impactful stat, food is EVERYWHERE. 
Besides WX is already immune to eating, Just die everytime before you starve and revive using the chassis  

you shouldn’t have the ability to literally negate one stat. Let’s be honest, having 100 health and sanity isn’t that big of a deal…

1 minute ago, Soul7k said:

its 6 days without skills. and it isnt free. you are eating the same amount as anyone else just at different times all at once

this is closer to what I was expecting. 2 weeks seems fine

you lose less hunger over time. so esting one meaty stew gives you more than 2 days of effective hunger.

[Soul7k]

3 minutes ago, Sacco said:

you lose less hunger over time. so eating one meaty stew gives you more than 2 days of effective hunger.

with skills yes. without no