Wilson is bland and unenjoyable to play

[reddocc]

I would give Wilson a unique skill that adds pockets to seasonal clothing just to troll everyone 

[Walrusst]

43 minutes ago, reddocc said:

I would give Wilson a unique skill that adds pockets to seasonal clothing just to troll everyone 

Honestly kinda good. If he got half the pockets of a backpack his beard+vest would legitimately be a compelling option just because you don't need all the slots in the known universe even if the item bloat makes me genuinely have my head split at times.

[hoppin mandrake]

I wholeheartedly disagree. Wilson is the standard Don't Starve experience. Instead of relying on gimmicks and special powers he (you) has to make use of everything the game has to offer, whether it be the standard items, or the environment itself. Wilson in my mind, lore-wise, is the kind of character that would come up with clever ways to survive using anything that's available to him (hiring pig-men to chop down lots of trees, using treeguards to kill beargar, etc. while other characters have gimmicks that allow them to do those things quickly themselves. This is another reason I like playing as Wilson, because an experienced player can easily nullify any weaknesses other characters have and all you're left with are these cheap powers that to me, just feels like cheating. I played as WX-78 recently and it wasn't even fun to me because it felt like I was playing with cheat codes, as it didn't take much to completely remove the dangers of overheating, freezing, night time, or even clockworks in the ruins (not to mention the insane buffs he can get like 400 HP and AOE with high DPS or the ability to move around the map instantly and transport items to any location). 

As for his skill-tree the alchemy branch is incredibly useful and the beard insulation is helpful although the inventory slots are more useful early game. The torch branch I usually skip and is basically a lantern replacement that just uses different ingredients (also non-perishable!) that doesn't require you to go to the caves to get lightbulbs. I'm glad they didn't make his skill-tree too overpowered or Wilson would lose his appeal to me. His vanilla-ness is what makes him shine to me, and a lot of people like vanilla!

Edited yesterday at 06:52 AM by hoppin mandrake

[Cruvimaster]

It's strange for me that someone says they like vanilla Wilson and in the same sentence says they like using the skill tree modifications. What a great rhetoric full of contradictions!

The consistency would be: "I like vanilla Wilson and that's why I never use the 15 skill points. I love the DS standard and I'm loyal to that."

[hoppin mandrake]

38 minutes ago, Cruvimaster said:

It's strange for me that someone says they like vanilla Wilson and in the same sentence says they like using the skill tree modifications. What a great rhetoric full of contradictions!

The consistency would be: "I like vanilla Wilson and that's why I never use the 15 skill points. I love the DS standard and I'm loyal to that."

You fail to argue how you believe that Wilson's skill-tree detracts from the vanilla experience other than it simply existing, which is no argument at all. His skill tree ultimately boils down to trading resources at a cost. His alchemy branch is quite simply "The Wandering Trader". His torch branch is a lantern trade and his beard branch gives his innate beard insulation/growth a little buff. These are hardly game breaking mechanics that detract from a vanilla experience, which I believe was the point. The devs clearly did not want to give him any niche skills or super buffs.

Also ignoring parts of the game in some kind of strange vain attempt at maintaining some idealized "vanilla experience" is not the kind of player that I am. I enjoy taking advantage of all available resources in a game. Wilson now has a skill-tree, so I'm going to use it.

[Ridley]

40 minutes ago, hoppin mandrake said:

You fail to argue how you believe that Wilson's skill-tree detracts from the vanilla experience other than it simply existing, which is no argument at all.

I'll give you that his skill tree is so unimpactful that it might as well be the "vanilla experience", but doesn't that mean current defenders of the status quo would be fine with Wilson changes if the power level/simplicity remain relatively the same? For example, if Wilson could share crafted prototype knowledge with nearby teammates like a learning science machine, is that really going to deviate too far from the "vanilla experience"?

 

Also, do torch perk users not make a chest full of lanterns? You can quickly amass 40 lightbulbs when walking through the caves for other business and refuel your lanterns in bulk. It allows you to not carry grass and sticks around, which frees up one of those oh-so-coveted inventory slots.

[Cruvimaster]

4 hours ago, hoppin mandrake said:

You fail 

Fail. The purists here on the forum are just playing dumb and turning a blind eye, trying to deny the facts.

Fact: Wilson didn't get a rework, so the standard experience remains intact and the devs can maintain their balancing benchmarks for new bosses and other content. He will always remain the standard choice for anyone who wants to play that way.

Fact: Using the skill tree is just as optional as changing any other game setting.

Fact: Spending even a single point in the skill tree means Wilson is no longer "vanilla."

Purists lack the self-control to manage their own gameplay and will end up using Wilson's skill tree, even while claiming it's OP. Because of their own gameplay shortcomings, they want to prevent Wilson from being improved for the rest of the community.

Wilson has abilities that allow him to deal more damage than the standard version. So, stop with this talk about Wilson's skill tree keeping him "vanilla."

[Walrusst]

4 hours ago, hoppin mandrake said:

His alchemy branch is quite simply "The Wandering Trader". His torch branch is a lantern trade and his beard branch gives his innate beard insulation/growth a little buff. These are hardly game breaking mechanics that detract from a vanilla experience, which I believe was the point.

Honestly what I'd like is just for the using all resources in the game part to get a small second look. Since I like using flatly irrelevant items too, its just I find myself tiring trying to show people this stuff as the things people don't use, tend to be a big grind to use properly.

Hence why what I want is a the worlds smallest grind reductions, and maybe some durability/ease of use on the most useless tools in existence, especially if these tools were associated with 2013 don't starve and have fallen out of being useful, or fell out of use because they flat out don't work well with DST netcode. I want a vanilla + where it sort of brings back a retro style of vanilla where we care about things that we forgot about because of the immense buffs and nerfs that happened in DST.

I get people talk about the purity of facing the world without perks, but the essence of the matter is that the environment since DSA has been massively altered to work with the fact that there isn't enough resources for six singleplayer resource needs (See the 5x stronger thermal stone here, sure it breaks but it effectively would remove half the DSA ROG singleplayer gameplay if you could count on it nearly as well there,) and the bosses and enemies have been turned to 11 just to keep up with the power of a six player team pre insight.

I know for a fact the vanilla items are strong enough to handle any encounter in the game at any skill level, but needing 4x-10x as many of them for many encounters if I don't resort to the morning star and hambat exclusively is what worries me. Eventually it becomes a grind, or an inaccurate time capsule where we scoff at dark swords and the like trying to preserve a "vanilla experience" that's a much more small and cut down version of what we actually had.

Edited 23 hours ago by Walrusst

[hoppin mandrake]

1 hour ago, Cruvimaster said:

Fact: Spending even a single point in the skill tree means Wilson is no longer "vanilla."

Labeling your opinions as facts is a logical fallacy. The vanilla experience has merely been shifted in Don't Starve Together due to official updates, Wilson's skill-tree is now part of his new vanilla experience. It is not some "modded" addition, it is now part of the core game, albeit optional like a world setting. To avoid using Wilson's skill-tree to maintain some ridiculous, warped, and idealized "vanilla experience" would be the same as avoiding anything the devs have added since Don't Starve Together was first launched. By your rational if I want to remain a "vanilla purist" I would have to avoid the ocean entirely, all lunar and shadow rift content, and every item added since DST's initial launch. The vanilla experience isn't some static snapshot in time, it's an evolving experience like any other part of the game. 

Edited 21 hours ago by hoppin mandrake

[Walrusst]

Plus theres characters where if I don't spend three days on cargo hauling for every story event, their gimmicks are not a big contributor in a lot of cases anyhow outside of single insight perks that distort the game.

No rose colored goggles 2 winowna is still a viable character sure, but solving any difficult fight with catapult spam feels legitimately bad with how long you are just gathering resources and hauling things. I can just club this monster to death why am I bothering with this? Its simple enough to get what is 90% a vanilla experience with a little less sanity loss and a lot more hunger just being lazy with her bonuses. Like if I'm not doing the equivalent of grinding 80 gunpowder in just crafting, hauling, and putting down generators for catapults its sort of not far from a wilson who can repair shirts and recharge the morning star (Mind you, fixing your hat and using a shiny stick is cool gameplay.) You can farm nightmare fuel, work like a dog to craft catapults to face challenges that are normally outside your skill level, but you don't have to.

I can spend a week hauling catapults, but its also easy to just feed slurtles rocks while I wait for my four stacks of wet eggs to rot. You are able to experience the game practically perkless or even in pure downside states on at least three other characters with all points spent. Winowna, Wormwood, WX. All of these characters have significant grinds to actually utilize their abilities, and if you choose not to exploit these (Which, I'm going to tell you Its justifiable to just take on a challenge and not bother with doing the maximum grind to cheese an encounter, sometimes it just feels better to drop your paper weights and just do the things instead of running in circles repeating a build order over and over ad infinitum,) you are stuck with a base kit and the second two even still feature considerable outside stressors or limitations that you have to face to even play them. (For the purpose of this point, I ignored wes and pre-rework characters with similar "Their power can be high if you grind forever but you aren't forced to grind" like warly. I also skipped characters like woodie where trying to cheat on lucy is senselessly breaking away from a freebie. I only bring up characters whose bonuses incur enough of a cost that I wouldn't get bewildered if I saw them choose the convenience of a hambat over the grind of using their characters.)

This is to say, you can achieve a core kit only experience with characters who have "better" options that are honestly big grinds where its convenient to just, not bother with skill. A lot of people who have gotten frustrated with the changes sort of ignore that not every character is a wanda, wortox, wendy, willow sort of character. Not all characters have unavoidable bonuses that are borderline free to activate once an infinite resource loop is started. Some abilities have annoying to pay costs to use, and the fact is you aren't forced into a suicidal grind to use them. For about half the cast, its valid to dodge your bonuses and return to base kit to save time. You aren't being forced to advance to crab. You can return to monkey. You can always return to monkey.

The games spirit is intact because we've always had this mix of power fantasy characters and the base kit with gunpowder alternatives past ROG. (Wolfgang used to just be being twice as tough and powerful as other characters at the cost of just eating double, no awkward animations that stun you, no need to carry extra items to avoid giving up your bonuses, just being 4x (double damage double durability means an HP trade you will win 4x as easily) for double the food cost and a mild sanity tax.)

Edited 21 hours ago by Walrusst

[Cruvimaster]

1 hour ago, hoppin mandrake said:

Labeling your opinions as facts is a logical fallacy. 

You only see what you want to see. And if you singled out just one point, I’m already happy, because it shows you’re unable to deny the others.

Here’s another fact for you: the devs are going to revisit the old skill trees because they aren't satisfied with them. Just wait 3 to 5 years.

[AliceShiki]

I get your point, Cruvimaster, but I think you're not understanding Hoppin Mandrake's point.

It's not that Hoppin Mandrake wants a 100% vanilla experience necessarily... But more that they want to play around with a character and make use of the character tools without feeling like an OP monster that just straight up murders the game.

By not having anything too extraordinary, Wilson allows them to play in that way.

Yes, you are correct that self-control in not picking Skill Tree perks would still lead to the same outcome, but that's actually a pretty hard thing to ask players to have. Challenge runs aren't very popular in general for a reason, most people won't hold back and will use all the options that the game offer them. It's genuinely hard for most people to actively choose to hinder themselves when they know they can do better.

There is even a game design saying about it, where players, if given the opportunity, will optimize the fun out of the game... So it's the devs' jobs to make the most optimal path also a pretty fun path, because otherwise people will absolutely optimize the fun out of the game... And we really don't need to look very far to see that. Just look at Dragonfly. See how many people complain about how boring Dragonfly is because of Walls/Pan Flute, and instead of simply fighting Dragonfly without walls/Pan Flute, they instead choose to ask for a rework for Dragonfly because the boss is way too boring... They could just have self-control and not use walls/Pan Flute, but walls/Pan Flute are optimal at trivializing the boss, so they do it.

So essentially, you're kinda working against human psychology when you tell people to have self-control in a game in regards to not picking power ups.

... And for the record, I don't think it's that unreasonable to tell people to try going against human psychology anyways. Which is why I'm against reworks for Dragonfly (though well, I wouldn't be against getting extra rewards for actually fighting Larvaes/Enraged Phase), since I like the fight as is... But well, I guess it's important to just take this into account when going into those debates?

[Walrusst]

13 minutes ago, AliceShiki said:

So essentially, you're kinda working against human psychology when you tell people to have self-control in a game in regards to not picking power ups.

I mean we always need that playing, the games full of completely wack powers without insight.

We used to treat bosses like a shopping list of what we needed to kill them without fighting them before the hp values tripled or 10x'ed. Now we still have multiple explosives, items that end phases completely, darts, minions, beefalo, repairable forge weapons from the late game. Dreadstone gear where we can sit around the cult of the lamb fireplace with a fancy hat and just repair it for free.

Self restraint was always a part of skill expression in this game. You could say a beefalo carries the risk of feeling scared you might lose it, but I'm used to the consensus being that people would reroll a day if a significant number of bulls were lost.

There is a reason why I focused my argument on characters whose powers were grindy and annoying enough to use that I could see players not maximally exploiting them just for the convenience of doing things the old fashion being a common thing, still in the game. (Sure they sometimes had a skill that is just a genuinely good option but like.... One insight skill that takes your full tree to get to for a passive benefit isn't something that feels forced.)

Edited 19 hours ago by Walrusst