My thoughts on the WX78 beta - a long review

[Anomaly963]

I know this is quite late now, but I still wanted to share my thoughts and suggestions on the content of the beta. I've summarised my suggested changes at the bottom as this is very long.

Alpha circuits

Spoiler

With the addition of separated circuit bars, stat increasing circuits (now 'alpha') are far more viable, as they no longer compete with circuits that offer utility. This alone makes WX much more interesting to play, as you have a lot more freedom and capacity to choose your circuit loadout. It is however a bit of a shame that WX still cannot reach the base stats that original WX could by consuming gears.

Hardy and Super-hardy

Bonus health is obviously useful, not much to say here, in terms of stat increases health is most valuable. The damage reduction from tinkering is now very small, capping at 17.5% if you only install hardy-type circuits in all 7 slots. Considering this doesn't reduce the damage armour takes, it doesn't feel very good. The effective hp increase from using 1/2/3/3.5 super-hardy circuits is ~10/33/70/93 hit points, so you won't really notice this unless you use only hardy circuits. If this damage reduction also applied to armour, it would lead to armour lasting about 20% longer with 7 hardy circuits. This damage resistance also increases the value of healing, which WX has good access to with gears, so although the reduction amount feels quite small, it probably needs to be kept low, as much as I would like for it to feel more impactful. I wanted to suggest increasing the resistance but making it stack multiplicatively, but with such small values, this has little effect to reduce stacking effectiveness. Instead, this resistance could stack diminishingly in the same way as super-acceleration circuits, with specified bonuses for each combination, allowing a higher resistance with a single hardy circuit without going too high when hardy circuits are stacked.

Gastrogain and Super-gastrogain

Bonus max hunger is not very important in my opinion. 100 max hunger is already enough to eat almost any food with no waste, only 150 hunger foods like meaty stew would lose value, and a single gastrogain circuit lets you consume those too with almost no waste. What is more impactful is the hunger drain reduction, innate to super-gastrogain, then added to normal gastrogain and improved upon by the tinkering perks. These reductions feel pretty good right now, with a single super-gastrogain circuit having a noticeable impact on food consumption. The difficulty gastrogain has competing with hardy should mean that players that really focus on reducing hunger drain are well rewarded, and the ~70% reduction achievable seems fair to me.

Processing and Super-processing

Increasing max sanity only really makes sanity management less volatile, as effects of sanity are based on the percentage, not absolute numbers like health and sanity (where the only thing that matters is being above 0). Having a very large sanity pool means that more sanity must be gained to recover from full insanity - this can be helpful for farming nightmare fuel, or a hindrance if one wishes to avoid that danger. This means that whether or not to use processing circuits comes down to personal preference. The bonuses from tinkering actually make processing circuits help you stay sane in the long term, with less sanity loss and more sanity gain (from auras and dapperness respectively). This makes processing circuits much more appealing for players that want to avoid the effects of insanity, and helps justify sacrificing extra hp.

Beanbooster

As an upgrade to super-processing, the same arguments also apply to beanbooster. Functionally, you are paying 1 circuit slot for 2 sanity and 10 health per minute, and with tinkering, an overhealing shield that generates at 15hp per minute when full hp. To me, this is fine, the regen and shield both add a measure of convenience, letting you ignore small amounts of damage. I would really like it if the shield was damaged before armour, as the way it currently functions, it is often more efficient to unequip your armour while the shield is engaged (at 15 shield hp it prevents damage from spilling over onto your health) to avoid wasting armour durability. Overall, I like the state beanbooster is in, but see it as an 'everyday' circuit, not a combat circuit. It is annoying that the shield is lost when switching chassis, even if both chassis have the beanbooster circuit.

Beta circuits

Spoiler

Rangebooster

This circuit is okay, but unless you're taking advantage of the tinkering effect for extra range with drones, I don't think it's very useful outside of sailing. The maximum zoom achievable with 7 rangeboosters and a horizon expandinator is not as ridiculous as I expected. It would be great if these also increased exploration radius, like the pirate hat from shipwrecked.

Chorusbox

Ok for tending plants, with warm standby it is slightly better than a gramophone as it is always on. The strength of the sanity aura is hard to judge, as it does not affect yourself and I have been playing solo. With warm standby though, you can benefit, but only when staying near the inactive chassis. I don't really have much trouble with sanity most of the time, so I still can't gauge it's effectiveness. The tinkering effect seems quite useful, though I haven't really touched that part of it as I've been using clockwork followers, which are not compatible with pigs or bunnymen. With the addition of spin-cycle, I am less interested in using chorusbox for assistance with chopping trees. Does this effect work on merms when combined with a clever disguise? And if not, should it? The same music on loop can get annoying, so a bit more variation would be nice, perhaps changing the song with records?

Acceleration

Moving faster is always useful, but this circuit is just a temporary option until you can upgrade. I'm not sure if the tinkering effect works on this circuit.

Super-acceleration

Probably the best circuit, especially with the tinkering slow resistance. Using 3 of these allows WX to kite normally while wearing a marble suit, and still with far more speed than any other unmounted character. This is great for being very durable in fights, without committing to just tanking everything. It is also very convenient for travel, and moving heavy objects, being an excellent substitute to taming beefalo. I've found myself using 3 super-acceleration circuits quite a bit, even not bothering to equip the temperature circuits for summer and winter, which I did do when playing WX before.

Thermal

I haven't used this since the beta began, but it is very convenient to simply ignore the cold of winter. I'd like the freezing overlay to not appear when this circuit is active - I always carried a thermal stone too when using it. The tinkering resistance to being frozen sounds nice, good for tanking deerclops, but I'm not sure how many sources of freeze there are in the game, so I think it's a bit niche.

Refrigerant

Again, not used this recently but it's nice to ignore overheating. Wildfires are also a concern in summer, so this circuit doesn't let you ignore the season entirely. It could also use a tweak to remove the overheating overlay. The tinkering fire resistance/immunity sounds nice, though again, I think it's quite niche.

Electrification

I haven't tried this circuit, it doesn't fit my playstyle, but I'm glad other players have this option. Personally, I'd rather use super-acceleration circuits to try to avoid damage than electrification to return damage.

Illumination

Heavily nerfed, the light radius of this is now pitiful. With the tinkering light beam, it is usable, but should be upgraded to super-illumination as soon as possible to save space.

Super-illumination

Functions the same as illumination, but only costs 1 slot. A single super-illumination can fill an unused slot, providing immunity to darkness and just enough light to work in the dark, but even with the tinkering beam the level of light is limiting (this is fine, and an incentive to use more than 1). I think 3 of these are about as much light as the pre-nerf illumination circuit, so you can get a similar slot to light ratio. Having the option to use fewer slots on light is great. I did expect the light radius with 7 super-illumination to be a bit bigger; it's not quite as large a light radius as a lantern, but you do also have the beam.

Optoelectronic

I didn't use this much before, the 1 extra slot cost vs illumination and the overlay both deterred me. Now we have 1 more slot to spend, and the tinkering removes the overlay I've put it to use exploring the caves. It does feel a little weird to have an aesthetic change locked behind a skill, rather than being in the options, but this change does make it much nicer to use.

Spatializer

I love this circuit, infinite storage is great. You only get access to it slightly earlier than you could first get an elastispacer, but how soon can you really spare a shard for elastispacer? Being able to move the storage, as it's part of your inventory is much more useful for collecting resources too - with a few of these you could strip the whole world of rocks, or trees etc. Currently there is still no tinkering buff for the spatializer; hopefully it will get something. I'm not sure why the slots need to be opened and closed though. Also, items in a closed slot aren't usable in crafting and you can only have 1 slot open at a time, which makes it awkard to use these to carry crafting materials. Lastly, items won't automatically merge into open infinite slots when you pick them up, you have to move everything in manually, which is another unnecessary inconvenience.

Gamma circuits

Spoiler

I think there was an expectation that gamma circuits were going to be a strong, game-changing addition to WX78's kit, and it might have been fine if they were that, but what we got seem to be more in line with the power of existing circuits - some convenience, but nothing game-breaking. This makes sense as they are an addition to the base kit - not locked behind the skill tree. They also don't compete with any of the old circuits for slots, only each other. I would like to see a 1-slot gamma circuit, as otherwise the 7th gamma slot is often left empty, though I'm not sure how best to address this. I'd get a lot of use out of spatializer being moved to gamma, but it would probably out-compete the other circuits too much, and I want to use a few spatializers with 2 spin-cycles for mass harvesting. Moving rangebooster would be good I think, as it feels a bit too weak vs the other beta circuits, but I'd also be happy to see a completely new gamma circuit. The activation for both blocking and sonic-invoker is also not the best right now, especially if you have both installed. I'm hoping we see an ability wheel to make using the gamma circuits easier.

Redigestion

Redigestion is 'okay'. You can easily get it very early, with the other circuits taking a bit more effort, exploration and time to unlock. This means it has no competition in the early game, which is unfortunately when it is least useful - you probably don't have any rot yet. When you do get notable amounts of rot, it is likely because you have too much food, so making more low-quality food from that rot isn't a big deal. It is nice that nutribricks are more efficient as fuel than the rot required to make them. They are also a good compost fertilizer, but only more efficient when made with 3 redigestion circuits (I believe). The time required to actually process food/rot is however excessive. I ran a test and took 90 seconds to process 60 rot (with 3 redigestion) into 20 nutribricks. This means it takes 1 minute of doing nothing but processing rot to process just 1 stack. I really hope that something is done about this time sink, as currently it deters me from really making use of this circuit. With the tinkering buff, spoiled food also counts towards nutribrick production, which leads to a strange situation where maximising efficiency actually requires waiting for food to reach red spoilage before consuming it. It also means you want to avoid having redigestion circuits on any chassis you might need to fight with, lest you get 'stunned' by the animation by eating spoiled food.
The simplest way to address these problems would be to let players interrupt the animation, but I would really like some way to process rot in bulk, perhaps we could activate the circuit to open a container (1-3 slots?), that processes all rotten items put inside when the container is closed, allowing us to process large amounts with only a single animation to generate the nutribricks.

Blocking

I find the blocking circuit is almost in a state I would be happy with, if it was slightly improved in any of several ways I would be satisfied with it's role, but as it is I'm not quite sold on it. If the block was 100% then I could use it to ignore 1 hit each cooldown; if the cooldown was very low I could use it to mitigate each hit I take; if it protected armour I could use it to extend the effectiveness of my armour. Instead I don't really find a situation where I want to use it. I haven't been able to test out the taunt effect, so maybe that would be fun, especially combined with electrification circuits, holding aggro and returning damage while other players clean up the enemies safely. The idea of a 'bubble shield' circuit excites me a lot more, something that could protect nearby allies too - this would feel much better to use even if it had the same stats (and even with a longer cooldown) as I can trade my damage output for reduced damage taken by allies. My ideal implementation of such an idea though would be a bubble that blocks all damage (and hit effects, like knockback or freeze) for a short time (2 seconds?) then the circuit could have a very long cooldown (2+ minutes) and still feel worth using. My biggest concern with the implementation of damage reduction in WX's kit, both for blocking, hardy circuit tinkering effect and beanbooster shield is that none of these effects protect your armour at all, and armour is so vital to survivability. I'm just now reaching the phase of the game where planar damage is a threat, and maybe these effects will prove more useful against planar damage, which can be threatening even when well armoured. I would also probably swap the knockback resistance to be innate and the taunt effect to be part of the tinkering skill personally.

Sonic-invoker

This circuit is 'okay'. Fear itself is a somewhat useful effect, and being able to apply fear continuously with the tinkering effect is strong, but it still doesn't meet the level of Wigfrid's fear effect. Wigfrid's Startling Soliloquy can be used repeatedly to achieve a continuous fear, but she can continue to take other actions in between casts; WX must remain motionless for the same effect. The cooldown doesn't begin until you interrupt the cast, so you can't even get a few seconds of activity in between long casts to maintain a continuous fear. I understand a desire to make the 2 effects distinct, but unfortunately this just makes sonic-invoker less appealing to use - I don't want to simply do nothing for extended periods, even if it is contributing. The best use case I found for Startling Soliloquy was disrupting the crab guards during the crab king fight - spamming the effect can entirely nullify the guards, including the knight, for free. I tried to use sonic-invoker in the same way, but the cooldown is too high to use more than once and the duration is too short to keep the guards feared until I'm back on my boat unless I save it only for the escape. In it's current state this circuit can be useful, but doesn't feel great to play with.

Spin-cycle

Easily the best gamma circuit, the utility for gathering resources alone makes it a good circuit. The durability bonus and aoe effect make harvesting trees much easier, reducing the need for alternatives, like hiring pigs or luring a boss to crush the trees. I've found the dizziness is not a problem when chopping large, dense forests as I chop a group of trees, then stop and reset before positioning to chop the next group, losing all dizziness in that interval. For combat, it is a great addition to WX's kit. The hit-stun immunity is very strong and can even prevent the 'mind control' attack from AFW. The only real reason to not use this circuit is to allow for fine control over targeting, which is particularly important for palmcone trees, so the ability to disable the effect without unplugging the circuit would be greatly appreciated.

Skills

Spoiler

Right to modify (+fine motor control) and Watts up (+energy efficient)

All of these effects are just quality of life improvements to reduce the pain of switching circuits. This is less important with the addition of backup chassis, but still a nice option. As 4 separate skills they were too expensive for what they did, but now I think these skills are viable options. Right to modify's durability bonus is nice, but I'm not too concerned about recrafting circuits; the ability to choose which circuit to unplug is useful, but you can still be forced to unplug everything to get the circuits in the order that you want. I don't think I'll use this skill but I can understand people picking it. A nice improvement would be the ability to rearrange circuits without unplugging them - this might be enough to sway me. Watts up is more appealing to me, but the reality is that most of the time you are at full charge, and this skill doesn't have any effect. When it does come into play, it makes quite a difference to how long your circuits are out of action. I think it's worth taking if you swap circuits a lot, or have lots of trouble with losing charge in other ways - unless you have a Winona to help you recharge.

Alpha circuits tinkering I

The hunger drain reduction effect is very small, I don't think this skill is worth taking for just that, the insanity aura resistance is quite impactful against bosses like deerclops, where it can make the difference between going fully insane during the fight and getting your sanity to last until the fight is over.

Alpha circuits tinkering II

I haven't managed to get a good feel for how impactful the gastrogain and processing buffs are, and my calculations for the hardy damage reductions show that you get little benefit unless you stack super-hardy circuits. The beanbooster shield is nice, maybe worth a skill point by itself.

Beta circuits tinkering I

The freezing and fire resistances are strong, but niche effects. The removal of the mole vision filter is great. Hiring lots of pigs/bunnymen for free is good, especially pre-spin-cycle, though I haven't really put this to use myself. The rangebooster is great if you have roto-mappers/zaptrocuter, but otherwise has no effect. Perhaps a potential exploration radius bonus on rangebooster circuits should be locked to this skill.

Beta circuits tinkering II

Slow resist is amazing, particularly when stacked. No comment on the electric explosion, I haven't tried it. The light beam makes a low number of illumination circuits viable, but becomes less important if you stack a lot of them.

Gamma circuits tinkering I

Letting red-spoilage food count for redigestion introduces a strange dynamic, where red-spoilage food is more useful than less spoiled food, and this can be actively detrimental if you trigger the animation by eating red-spoilage food in combat. The unlimited duration fear is stronger, but encourages the player to stand still more, instead of actually playing.

Gamma circuits tinkering II

Knockback resistance is probably essential if you try to use the blocking circuit against anything that has knockback, although the danger of getting continuously attacked by nightmare werepig/armoured bearger should not be overlooked. I'm not sure how much the spin-cycle spin speed is improved by this skill, so I'm unsure if it is necessary or not.

Off by one

One extra slot for all your circuit bars, this is very useful and opens up more freedom for different circuit builds - a must-have skill

I'm currently using all of the tinkering skills, but some of these don't seem great right now. Beta 1/2 are fine, alpha 1 is good but alpha 2 seems barely worth taking. Gamma 1 doesn't feel great but is needed for gamma 2, which is probably essential for maximising the value of spin-cycle.

Cold Standby I

Entry into the chassis tree, and enabling the utility of having a second circuit loadout, this is one of the most essential skills in the entire skill tree. The ability to unlock your inactive chassis in the same way that Walter can unlock Woby would be great, whether this is on an individual basis (per chassis) or all at once. I would also like the inactive chassis to not block movement.

Inhabited Machine I

There are lots of good ways to revive already, but this upgrade just makes sense - of course your backup chassis should serve as an actual backup, letting you revive. I'd prefer it to not be a prerequisite for the rest of the tree, but it's fine the way it is.

Cold Standby II and Cold Standby III

Objectively useful skills, more options, more freedom, more utility - but it's strange that there is a limit on the number of backups you can craft in the first place. I can't think of anything else in the game before the WX skill tree that has a crafting limit like this. For everything else, if you have the ingredients and know the recipe, you can craft it - why is WX suddenly different? If this needs to be limited for performance reasons, then fine, but for balance? Equipping many chassis gets expensive fast, farming biodata takes time and effort and each chassis needs a whole selection of circuits, in addition to basic equipment. Winona's catapults are strong and her teletransport stations are very useful, but there is no limit on how many of these she can craft. If the concern is the number of potential revives, then the similar cost of life-giving amulets should be considered. Another issue I take with this limit is that there is no in-universe justification for it. Maxwell can only have 6 shadow clones at once, because each clone costs maximum sanity - at 6 he doesn't have enough sanity left to pay for another. With WX's backups, I don't see any reason you can't craft another, aside from the decision to limit it. Even if the hard limit is maintained, I would really like just a couple more backups. The current limit is not quite enough to do everything I would like to do, and while I would use even more if there was no limit, I'd appreciate even a small increase to the limit. If the limit is here to stay, then I'd propose each cold standby upgrade gives +2 chassis instead of +1. If the limit was removed, then replacement skills would be needed, potentially raise the initial cost of the backups, then have 2 skills reducing the cost down to what it is now.

Remote Transfer

This skill is essential, allowing great utility as a pseudo-teleport. Without it, moving chassis around is incredibly awkward. With the current way that hunger (and health/sanity) is transferred with your consciousness, you don't need to bring food with you. You can leave one chassis in base, then switch back to it whenever you need to eat. The benefit of this is amplified if your main chassis has gastrogain circuits and your base chassis does not. The fact that hunger and hp are maintained when switching chassis is strange (and contradicts what is shown in the animated short), and while I would rather each chassis had it's own hunger/hp pools, the way things are now is certainly useful. Temperature and wetness are also transferred, so you can always switch back to a chassis at base to warm up/cool down/dry off. This lessens the need to make use of the thermal and refrigerant circuits. Overall, this is one of the most powerful skills available, with even greater utility if combined with Transport I.

Warm Standby

I like the idea of warm standby, but it's not particularly useful for you. I think the skill works best when you are providing for other players (e.g. heat/light), but want to switch chassis for whatever reason. This skill lets you do that without abandoning players that are depending on your circuits for survival. If playing alone, the skill really only lets you use circuits as substitutes for existing solutions (e.g. scaled furnace, ice box, gramophone). One notable effect is that you can benefit from the sanity aura of chorusbox. I think the skill is in a good place, not essential but a solid option. Adding some effect for the circuits that don't benefit from this skill would be welcome too, but not necessary.

Inhabited Machine II

Firstly, requiring an unused backup chassis for this skill to function is enough to stop me from taking this skill. The limit is already very low and making use of this skill lowers that limit further. Requiring full charge in order to revive is fine, but this means that this skill will mainly trigger in combat. Against regular enemies that's not a problem, getting a second chance against a hound wave, for example, is good, but against a boss there is a large concern that it will simply destroy the backup as soon as it is created. This lowers the utility of a skill that already has a high cost (-1 chassis) to use.

Inhabited Machine III

This skill seems like a reasonable upgrade to the reviving ability, a natural extension. Locking it behind Inhabited Machine II however makes it much less desirable, as it effectively costs 2 skill points for 50hp (if you have all your backups already placed), as you will always revive with 0 energy and thus 100 max hp. I'd suggest swapping Inhabited Machine 2 and 3.

Transport I

An absolutely game-changing skill, the portable storage unit is amazing. By itself it is a really fun and useful item, allowing you to send 'care packages' to players (if you can identify their location) and send resources back to base, extending your resource harvesting trips. It can also be used as an extension of the inventory, just keep moving the unit a short distance, though this would get cumbersome fast with more units. When combined with Remote Transfer this gains even greater utility, allowing you to resupply while away from base, deliver important items you forgot to bring with you, transfer your seasonal gear to the chassis you want to use, etc. There is so much use you can get out of it, this skill is one I could never ignore, one of the most useful skills in any skill tree, probably my favourite skill in the game.

Transport II

An upgrade to the item I just praised so much, you would expect me to like this skill too, but while it is a nice upgrade, the increase in utility is only marginal. I've been playing without Transport II, and not felt the need for it. The 3 extra slots can be attained by simply crafting another small unit, with the actual benefit being only a reduced cost to attain that larger capacity, and the slight convenience advantage of a single 6-slot unit instead of 2 3-slot units. They stack to 10, so I can get 30 extra slots, and if I want another 30, I'd rather pay 1 inventory slot than 1 skill point. It's also annoying that I can't upgrade my existing units to the larger size, nor can I hammer them to return some of the ingredients to recraft into the larger units. If I had a spare skill point then I would use this skill, but it's not worth taking over any another skill I see value in. Even with a small buff for the larger units like increased delivery speed, the small units are already so good that getting Transport II is just not worth it. If the larger units could do something the smaller units can't it might be worth taking, like carrying heavy objects. Carrying statues and sunken chests would be quite useful, and would make the upgrade much more appealing.

Field Survey I

The roto-mapper is another amazing addition, I love how it lets you explore awkward areas, including the void of the caves. Mapping out important parts of the ocean is very useful too, and can save a lot of time. It also helps you make more informed decisions about where to base, as you can get this information sooner than it would normally be reasonable to acquire it. It doesn't actually make WX stronger than other characters as anyone can eventually explore all of the areas that need exploring, but it offers nice utility that WX can share with the team. Once you have fully explored both the surface and the caves, there is little reason to continue using this skill, however. While it can aid in finding the loot stash, I can't think of much else you might want to search for with it. Maybe lureplants or brightshades? Frostjaw's arena shows up on the map anyway. This means you can reset your insight and reinvest elsewhere, which some people may take issue with, but I'm okay with. It might be nice to add some other effect for when you have finished mapping, as a reason to keep the skill around, but it's fine to leave as a skill you only want temporarily. Maybe the mapper could scan enemies below it and show their hp percentage? It's also strange that there is a limit on how many you can craft.

Field Survey II

All this does is increase the distance you can send the mapper away to, but I did feel the need for that extra range. I'm not sure exactly how the range with and without this skill compares, but I ended up using both this skill and some rangeboosters to fully map both the surface and the caves. If I wasn't going to swap off of this skill, then it would feel too weak, but as I knew I was going to reset insight I didn't feel bad about using this skill for a while.

Telemechanical Enthusiast I

The zaptrocuter is an interesting weapon, but I'm not sure about it. Ranged weapons are always going to be a bit awkward when added to a game where melee weapons are standard. We do now have several good options for ranged weapons, so the zaptrocuter is not out of place, but it still feels strange to me. I don't think this is a problem with the zaptrocuter, it's just not for me. It can apparently stun-lock enemies (every hit stuns, but I'm not sure if they can attack between stuns), which might be too strong, and it is possible to attack without drawing aggro. I find the controls a bit clunky, I'm not sure if the delayed response to inputs is intended, or just that the zaptrocuter doesn't use lag compensation. Needing to activate it by right-clicking your hand slot with f doing nothing (you can punch with the controller, same as an unarmed punch), then firing with f and left-click doing nothing is not the most intuitive.

Telemechanical Enthusiast II

Increased range and more uses makes this easier to use, but I don't have enough experience with the zaptrocuter to analyse this skill in detail. I did however see a post showing that there is a limit to the range you can get, and that limit is reached very quickly with this skill (additional rangeboosters have no effect). If the range is already enough to avoid drawing aggro, why put a hard limit on the range? Why not just let the natural limit of the range exist? I don't think there's much point to capping the range like this.

Lunar Vessel (Lunar affinity)

I love this idea so much, it's such a cool affinity. I haven't actually played with it yet, only briefly tested it with cheats. I am concerned that because it uses your chassis, you lose the benefits of several other skill, most notable Remote Transfer. This means the lunar vessels are very expensive to use, and may not feel worth the cost unless they are so strong that they are overpowered. I need to actually spend some time playing with them though, to get a good idea of how they actually feel to use. I would like some way to make my vessels back off/stay at a location/avoid danger so I don't have to kill them before a dangerous fight or risk them being totally destroyed.

Shadow Servitor (Shadow affinity)

Again, a cool idea, especially installing the heart (shadow atrium). I know that it's still being worked on, but I was already quite happy with the concept. The collection effect was very nice, especially the ability to pick things up that are out of range (e.g. in the ocean or from cave holes) and harvest from cacti/spiky bushes without taking damage. It is annoying though when it keeps triggering and collecting things you don't want to pick up (both the active and inactive effects), I really hope we get the option to disable that effect without uninstalling the item. The damage boost is simple, and helps shadow WX keep up with lunar WX, and the many other characters with damage boosts (or other combat aids). The mimic use is really cool, I haven't used it yet, but I hope that the mimics don't switch back unexpectedly while you're using them. The boulderbough-type resource production is also a nice minor addition. All in all, the shadow affinity offers several small benefits, and gives you a nice feeling of progression as you reach each new item.

Suggestions

Spoiler

I've tried to order my suggestions by how important I think they are and how likely I think they are to be accepted/implemented, with the 'better' suggestions at the top. This ordering is both how the suggestions are split into groups, and their order within the groups. I make no demands, but I think the first group is all reasonable, though I wouldn't be surprised if nothing from the last group is accepted.

Spoiler

add ability wheel
allow unlocking chassis inventory
let zaptrocuter be launched with f and fired with left click (in addition to current controls)
allow toggling lunar vessel following the player
allow toggling shadow affinity collection effect (active and inactive chassis)
allow toggling off spin-cycle
allow items in spatializer to be used in crafting
allow items to enter open spatializer slots when picked up
stop beanbooster shield from resetting when switching chassis if both have beanbooster
allow interruption of redigestion/nutribrick animation
tweak thermal and refrigerant circuits so freezing/overheating overlays don't appear under normal seasonal temperatures

 

the ability wheel would hopefully include:

• sonic-invoker activation
• blocking activation
• spin-cycle toggle
• chassis lock/unlock
• shadow affinity collection toggle
• lunar affinity follow/wait toggle
• redigestion bulk processing

Spoiler

allow bulk processing of rot with redigestion
remove collision for inactive chassis
swap blocking taunt to tinkering skill and knockback resist to innate effect
start the cooldown of sonic-invoker when cast begins instead of when cast ends
swap inhabited machine 2 and 3
remove the hard cap on range increases for zaptrocuter
allow re-ordering installed circuits with Right to Modify
add 1-slot gamma circuit or move rangebooster to gamma

Spoiler

slightly increase light radius for stacking many illumination circuits
increase maximum zoom out achievable when stacking many rangebooster circuits
let rangebooster increase exploration radius
give hardy damage resistance diminishing returns from stacking, to allow the base value to be buffed
let beanbooster shield protect armour
increase chorusbox music variety
add tinkering buff for spatializer
increase chassis limit bonus of cold standby 2 and 3 to +2 each
give transport 2 an unique advantage over transport 1, such as carrying heavy objects
give backup chassis protection from being stomped by bosses
increase block resistance or reduce block cooldown or let block protect armour
give field survey/roto-mapper an effect for when no more mapping is needed, such as revealing enemy hp

rework block into bubble shield or add bubble shield circuit (could be 1-slot with size, protection and cooldown all scaling with additional circuits, starting very poor in all respects: 8 min cd -1min per extra circuit, 10% protection +15% per extra circuit etc. tinkering bonus to block attack effects)

 

Overall, I've enjoyed playing the beta. I think there are lots of great ideas here and lots of reasons to play more WX78. I did expect there to be some sort of circuit storage or carrying case item/structure, perhaps even repairing circuits inside it, but the chassis system and Right to Modify skill have mostly addressed the problems in that area. There have been several nice surprises, including splitting the circuits into multiple types. None of the frustrating elements that remain are enough reason to not play WX, but I do hope they are addressed. Thank you Klei for continuing to care for and develop this game for so long, I'm looking forward to participating in the next beta, when that comes along, and regardless of if any changes I suggest make it into the game, I hope my thoughts have been helpful. And to anyone that made it this far, thank you for reading.

[Baark0]

Another issue with the sonic and blocking circuits is that I don't think theres a way to pick which one you want to activate first, so if you have both circuits equipped you wont have control over which one you'll use. I could see that being a pretty big issue if you want to get a bunch of enemies to leave you alone, only to instead enter a blocking stance that gives those enemies time to catch up to you, or you try to block a hit and instead channel the sonic waves and tank the full damage.

[doritosdamafia]

the tinkering 2 for gamma increase the spin speed by 20%, making you attack 2,5xx times a second instead of the normal 2,1xx times a sec, with another spin circuit you gain more 20%, making it 40%, that combination let you attack 3 times a sec

[CodexGoBrr]

Very good takes here. You made me type a comment. I’ve tested the beta myself and spent quite a bit of time thinking about the skill tree, but I’m too lazy to write everything out, so I’ll just comment on the points from your post I agree and disagree with the most:

- In my opinion, the maximum number of chassis is fine as it is.

- The buff from Alpha Circuits Tinkering II for the HP circuits is indeed too weak. It could be improved in a number of ways, depending on how the devs want to approach it.

- Transport II is currently pretty useless. Your idea of letting it carry heavy objects is great. It would be even more interesting if the drones could carry chassis — that could open up a playstyle where you don’t need Remote Transfer, which would synergize nicely with Lunar Vessel.

- What you said about Redigestion circuits is very true. It would be nice if non-spoiled food also counted toward redigestion. Getting stuck in the animation mid-fight is obviously an issue (same goes for the electrical explosion from Beta Circuits Tinkering II, but I won’t go into that here).

- Warm Standby could have great synergy with the Shadow affinity. For example, imagine Rangebooster circuits increasing the area where the shadow collects items, or the shadow using Spatializer’s infinite storage to keep gathering. The vines from the chassis could provide light, warmth, or cooling depending on installed circuits. Acceleration circuits could make mimics and vines spawn faster, and Electrification circuits could turn vines into lightning rods that attract strikes regardless of season. There’s a lot of potential here.

 

Just like Anomaly963 I know I am quite late with the feedback on the beta but if anyone still wants it from me I will do an indept review if this comment gets 5 likes. (I need motivation because I am lazy)

[Deurus]

I actually read everything, that’s why I gave you the trophy. Your comments provide really good feedback overall.

[Anomaly963]

13 hours ago, Baark0 said:

Another issue with the sonic and blocking circuits is that I don't think theres a way to pick which one you want to activate first, so if you have both circuits equipped you wont have control over which one you'll use. I could see that being a pretty big issue if you want to get a bunch of enemies to leave you alone, only to instead enter a blocking stance that gives those enemies time to catch up to you, or you try to block a hit and instead channel the sonic waves and tank the full damage.

I agree, this is why I think the ability wheel is an important addition. I think the devs acknowledged this problem a while back, but I can't find where, and they've obviously been busy with the affinities and preparing the update for release. I'm hoping now they'll have a bit more time to address this conflict.

12 hours ago, doritosdamafia said:

the tinkering 2 for gamma increase the spin speed by 20%, making you attack 2,5xx times a second instead of the normal 2,1xx times a sec, with another spin circuit you gain more 20%, making it 40%, that combination let you attack 3 times a sec

Thank you for the details, that certainly makes the tinkering skill seem like an essential choice.

11 hours ago, CodexGoBrr said:

Very good takes here. You made me type a comment. I’ve tested the beta myself and spent quite a bit of time thinking about the skill tree, but I’m too lazy to write everything out, so I’ll just comment on the points from your post I agree and disagree with the most:

- In my opinion, the maximum number of chassis is fine as it is.

- The buff from Alpha Circuits Tinkering II for the HP circuits is indeed too weak. It could be improved in a number of ways, depending on how the devs want to approach it.

- Transport II is currently pretty useless. Your idea of letting it carry heavy objects is great. It would be even more interesting if the drones could carry chassis — that could open up a playstyle where you don’t need Remote Transfer, which would synergize nicely with Lunar Vessel.

- What you said about Redigestion circuits is very true. It would be nice if non-spoiled food also counted toward redigestion. Getting stuck in the animation mid-fight is obviously an issue (same goes for the electrical explosion from Beta Circuits Tinkering II, but I won’t go into that here).

- Warm Standby could have great synergy with the Shadow affinity. For example, imagine Rangebooster circuits increasing the area where the shadow collects items, or the shadow using Spatializer’s infinite storage to keep gathering. The vines from the chassis could provide light, warmth, or cooling depending on installed circuits. Acceleration circuits could make mimics and vines spawn faster, and Electrification circuits could turn vines into lightning rods that attract strikes regardless of season. There’s a lot of potential here.

 

Just like Anomaly963 I know I am quite late with the feedback on the beta but if anyone still wants it from me I will do an indept review if this comment gets 5 likes. (I need motivation because I am lazy)

I know it's unlikely that the chassis count will increase, and the current number is enough to be fun to use, but it does feel quite restrictive to me - especially when considering taking inhabited machine 2. I'm at the limit and would make use of more, if they were available.

I think the hp circuit buff is actually in a good place for when you stack all hp circuits, almost 100 effective hp seems fair, and it has saved me at least once so far, but when only using 1 hp circuit it is negligible. It could even simply not stack, offering all the damage resistance from the first circuit.

I like that idea for transport 2, definitely a strong reason to take it - though I argue that would make remote transfer more important rather than less.

We could of course just unplug the redigestion before a fight, but I don't think circuits should be detrimental to keep installed. I didn't realise the electrification explosion stunned you too.

That's a really nice idea for warm standby/shadow affinity. I like that it gives effects that wouldn't make sense on the active chassis, so it is just a buff to warm standby without giving the feeling that you're missing effects when active. If you have more ideas like this you should definitely share them!

10 hours ago, Deurus said:

I actually read everything, that’s why I gave you the trophy. Your comments provide really good feedback overall.

Thank you.

[Baark0]

17 hours ago, doritosdamafia said:

the tinkering 2 for gamma increase the spin speed by 20%, making you attack 2,5xx times a second instead of the normal 2,1xx times a sec, with another spin circuit you gain more 20%, making it 40%, that combination let you attack 3 times a sec

Gamma tinkering 2 not actually providing a new effect for the spin-cycle circuit bothers me personally, since it's not a new effect it's just a stat change, something which is usually reserved for stacking circuits.

[Kvetevk]

20 minutes ago, Baark0 said:

Gamma tinkering 2 not actually providing a new effect for the spin-cycle circuit bothers me personally, since it's not a new effect it's just a stat change, something which is usually reserved for stacking circuits.

and what would it do instead?
could wx possibly spin on water or something?

also sonic-invoker also does nothing new, it just make it infinite

[OrangeNibble]

I would like if the body count were slightly increased. I think Lunar affinity counting against it, and remote transfer, and the inhabited machine 2 all using the same small number (3) is unnecessarily awkward. Maybe the lunar and shadow alignments could give +1 backup or something? Just a small bump would go a long way.

If you had like 5 backup bodies I think it would be a fun and fair trade off, but as is, if you want to use inhabited machine 2, you have max 2 backups, then if you want to use remote transfer, you have max 1 backup, then that means you can have a single lunar clone - which, anyway, will be super hard to use until late late late game. There is no real choice or trade-off here between allocating the resources. If you want to use each mechanic, the minimal possible amount, you are locked in to one of each. The inhabited machine 2 dynamic is especially clanky - and feels unnecessary and un-intuitive.