Is WX 78 op?

[madsci64]

He is stronger than any other character, even taking into account his drawbacks. If that's OP to you, then yeah. I think of him as a reward for accumulating gears, if you prefer that reward to a tougher challenge.

 

But in the summer, that wetness damage is a confusing pain. "Oh, I'm too hot, better put on the ice cube! Oops, water from the ice is hurting me! Is it worse than the heat? I dunno! GAH! Take it off! Oh crap, now I'm taking heat damage AND wetness damage!" Good times.

[mrtwoface]

If you think he is overpowered from eating the gears then, uh, don't eat the gears?

 

Why is this even a discussion? Can you not control the urge to be overpowered if it is available? 

[InaneDugong]

Okay guys, there's one thing: NO ONE OF ALL THESE CHARACTERS THAT KLEI HAS CREATED IS OVERPOVERED!!! REMEBER THIS ONCE AND FOR ALL! They all are balanced in different ways for different gameplay! Klei aren't going to rebalance them in any way. If you find game for yourself too easy, just configure world settings and everything is going to be okay

That's completely untrue and you've supplied no reasoning for your point besides "The Grandmasters are irrefutable". Do you think Starcraft 2 was balanced when it was first released because 'Blizzard la', or that League of Legends is still going through balance patches because 'Creative Direction ne'? Every game I've played in the last 10 years has required tweaking and balancing before its been an ideal game (and many games never actually accomplish this ideology - many).

 

On top of that, they've not only rebalanced characters in the past (providing a predicate for my point), they're redesigned them entirely (supporting my point many fold). So, I have no idea where or how you've deduced your reasoning - and it doesn't help that you didn't even try, else we'd ideas to exchange.

 

WX-78 is OP and, whilst it may not be something your familiar with or an area you've focused on, some of us have spent an enormous amount of time comparing the characters ingame, quantifying their state by a number of different variables:

-Ability to survive up to 75 days

-Ability to survive 75-150 days

-Ability to survive 150 days +

-Proficiency at Teching (in particular, ascertaining the necessary items to survive the Weather along with some direction of food-sources)

-Ability to survive Periodic Threads (hounds, giants, krampus(???))

-Ability to survive hostile Passive Creatures (spiders, hound-mounds, other T1 creatures)

-Capacity to combat Elite Creatures (Giants, Caves, Clockwerks, etc)

 

Sanity, Hunger, Health, and Temperament are all factors in this divisions. WX-78 has a steep curve that justifies its balance, but the issue is that any decent player - in the current game (RoG) - will be able to acquire Gears within the first 15-20 days which elevates WX-78 to God-Status fairly early.

The falloffs of WX-78 is its Health and Sanity (both default starting seasons have a good chance of raining in the first 5 days, and Spring can pose quite the threat here), however WX-78's starting health [the balance point] isn't that much lower than most characters and isn't even the lowest. On top of that, Sanity isn't much of a factor in the current game beyond forcing nomadic play. 

 

The Gear system isn't very dynamic since it's only a factor for a certain amount of time (till WX-78 gets around 4 Gears, and then again after it caps out its stats). It doesn't offer anything interesting except a 'Quest for Gears' which only lasts as long as you aren't capped-out, and it's not that much of a challenge to get your hands on.

 

So, what is balanced about WX-78 exactly? Its starting stats aren't terrible compared to other chars and, whilst Sanity is a huge issue till you get a few Gears, Lightning Strikes only serve to compensate for its low Health and give a Night light/Speed Boost that makes Willow envious. If Sanity was an intimidating element of the game, I'd say WX-78 is possibly slightly balanced given how hard the first 5 days are when it rains more than once, but this isn't even the case.

 

How is WX-78 balanced?

 

 

(P.S. please don't take this as an attack as I'm directing this at the community more so than yourself, @JustA4ever, and I am interested in hearing your response).

[9wpuv]

but the issue is that any decent player - in the current game (RoG) - will be able to acquire Gears within the first 15-20 days which elevates WX-78 to God-Status fairly early.

heck, even way faster if you're going for it. spear and logsuit. you can usually get the rook to cause collateral damage. and if you can be bothered you can even go for rain coat before spring is half done, just sucker some merms into some tentacles and hope for good rng. this also opens up the chance of getting a tentacle spike to make shorter work of the clockworks. and if you're kinda worried, those merms that just dropped that fish, just get a couple of fishsticks and you're golden. easy.

[InaneDugong]

heck, even way faster if you're going for it. spear and logsuit. you can usually get the rook to cause collateral damage. and if you can be bothered you can even go for rain coat before spring is half done, just sucker some merms into some tentacles and hope for good rng. this also opens up the chance of getting a tentacle spike to make shorter work of the clockworks. and if you're kinda worried, those merms that just dropped that fish, just get a couple of fishsticks and you're golden. easy.

The collateral by the Rook has always seemed ridiculously unintentional to me, so I don't include it. However, if we are to assume that it's intended (which we are left to), then getting Gears is only a task if you're playing Adventure Mode (which is where I tested WX-78 for sport) - and WX-78 is still a free-pass to winning Adventure Mode if you start off on A Cold Reception (frogs kill clockwerks for you).

[Alice]

I'm not saying WX-78 is not good but at least from my stand point Wolfgang and Wigfrid kinda beat him. Wolfgang's downside is hardly anything really since food is so easy to get and he does alot higher base damage. Wigfrid is also kinda superior imo. She has natural damage resistance and gains hp and sanity whenever something dies. His 400 hp and 300 sanity/hunger is really good but I kinda think its over rated when you compare it to others that can just kill things quicker.

[JustA4ever]

 I am interested in hearing your response.

Well, you have written a lot of things right there, so I am not going to discus them. But there's something you may have missed. WX primary was created in vanilla don't starve, which had way less set pieces than rog. So to get some gears you had to find wooden thing or go to ruins. Since you had low stats, going to ruins might be fatal, so you had to go searching for wooden thing at first. Of course, you can be lucky and find a touch stone in your way, or kill some pigs and make football helmet and a log suit, but since the first one is craftable only with alchemy engine you will have to have one in your base. Even with this equipment and maybe hambat or tentacle spike you still are going to have some trouble to deal with clockworks, because of the bishops: if you try to take down horse, they most likely will see you. 

So for short: WX-78 might be too good at Reign of Giants, but for me it seems pretty balanced for vanilla game.

And about balance of characters: I know that they were balanced after their introduction to the game, but I seriously do not think that Klei will rebalance them, except webber and wigfrid, since they still are pretty new for me.

[Amkar]

So for short: WX-78 might be too good at Reign of Giants, but for me it seems pretty balanced for vanilla game.

 

Other aspects of the game have been balanced where needed. Starving animals, expanded rain mechanic, food in crock pot spoiling.

 

I don't see why Wx-78 is apparently completely untouchable. It wouldn't be too much to ask to have him different in RoG but the same in vanilla.

 

 

Words.

 

You put that way better than I ever could have.

[NeoDeusMachina]

Other aspects of the game have been balanced where needed. Starving animals, expanded rain mechanic, food in crock pot spoiling.

 

I don't see why Wx-78 is apparently completely untouchable. It wouldn't be too much to ask to have him different in RoG but the same in vanilla.

 

 

 

 

You put that way better than I ever could have.

 

I honestly think that it is hard to balance a character only based on RoG, since this character is also in the vanilla game. As was mentionned previously, in order to fully upgrade him in vanilla, you either need to go to World 2 (which takes some time and effort, a lot of exploration and is hard to achieve for barely initiated players), or go down in the ruins (again, not the safest place to go, you will probably agree). The exception to this is adventure mode, but that is a whole other story (anyway, an unexperienced player won't be able to go through adventure mode, regardless if he is playing WX78 or not).

 

If he is balanced solely on the fact that in RoG gears are easier to acquire, then he will become even more difficult (if not too much) to upgrade in vanilla Don't Starve. Not everyone will be buying RoG, which makes it a bit tricky. I am not saying he definitely should not be tweaked, but I think it must not be only based on the fact that gears are more common in RoG. Even then, if you upgrade WX78 with all the gears you will find, then you can kiss good bye to important items, such as the icebox, the ice flingomatic (we need most of the time more than 1, and they each require 2 gears), and even the insulated pack (requires 3 gears). At least, for the early game.

 

Anyway, it was also said that the characters don't need to be balanced on relative to the others, this also needs to be kept in mind when talking about rebalancing a character.

[Amkar]

 

If he is balanced solely on the fact that in RoG gears are easier to acquire, then he will become even more difficult (if not too much) to upgrade in vanilla Don't Starve. 

 

Which is precisely why I said the changes should only apply with RoG enabled. Maybe I didn't make that clear enough, but with RoG disabled he would be the same, with it enabled he would have his changes applied. It's not like that's the only RoG exclusive rebalance.

 

Also, there's a guaranteed 10 (I think) gears from the Wooden Thing per world. Once you find them, along with gears you find in graves, you're already bordering on or arguably in "god-mode". Good enough to get the remaining gears in the ruins, certainly.

[NeoDeusMachina]

 

 

 

Which is precisely why I said the changes should only apply with RoG enabled. Maybe I didn't make that clear enough, but with RoG disabled he would be the same, with it enabled he would have his changes applied. It's not like that's the only RoG exclusive rebalance.

 

Also, there's a guaranteed 10 (I think) gears from the Wooden Thing per world. Once you find them, along with gears you find in graves, you're already bordering on or arguably in "god-mode". Good enough to get the remaining gears in the ruins, certainly.

 

 

I agree with the fact that it's 10 gears in one shot, but you need to find them and sacrifice some of them if you want to build important items. I think people see him as really strong only based on his stats, whereas in reality, stats are not the only thing that can make a character really strong.

 

For example, Wigfrid starts with 200 hp (Half as much as WX when fully upgraded), but she takes 25% less damage, meaning she has in reality 266.67 effective hp (=200/0.75). Not only that, but she also hits 1.25x stronger, meaning she will take in general less hits from her opponents, increasing her effective hp again (getting closer). Then, she can heal and restore her sanity from any monsters she slays, which again, increases her effective hp and sanity. What does she have to do to get all that ? Well, nothing. Where is the ''Wigfrid OP'' post ? I don't see one (yet) but it will probably come at some point.

 

Stats are not (only) what makes a character really strong. WX78, when fully upgraded, will have the greatest stats, but that's all he's gonna have. He will need to eat more food to sustain, he will also need more sanity restoration items if he goes insane or just more time to restore his sanity over time (with items such as tam'o'shanter), and he will also need a lot more healing items if he gets too low in hp. That is the down side of having high base stats, downsides you don't have if you have moderate base stats but almost as high effective stats thanks to your perks.

 

Some other characters don't even need to have such high stats because they don't need to compromise themselves as much in combat (Webber spider army, Wendy's twin sister, etc.).

 

I honestly think that all characters have their own god-mode (except perhaps Wes? but even him can become really strong with the proper items). If you don't believe me, gear yourself with any character with a marble suit, a thulecite crown and a dark sword, find an ancient guardian and hold down the ''F'' button on your keyboard. You will soon find out that you will face tank him and kill him in a couple of seconds with minimal damage, regardless of your character. I'd rather have other perks than stats, because late game items compensate more than enough for bad stats and if your only advantage is having good stats, then what else is left ? =)

 

Edit: I just found this thread: http://forums.kleientertainment.com/topic/32977-what-do-you-think-about-wigfrid/

 

But apparently most of the players think she is fine, probably based on her stats which are ok but not too high. There are some people that think she is OP, probably (at least in part) because of the reasons I mentionned.

[Amkar]

Stuff about Wigfrid

 

I think the key difference is that with her, it really changes how you play because she can only eat meat. That makes it more interesting and different. With Wx-78, his only disadvantage is weak start and rain. Once you've got enough gear, you have high stats and rain will not affect you (well, maybe with summer hats, but so far, I've found it more convenient just to not use them at all). And then what is he? A standard character who happens to have high stats?

[CREU]

Well autumn and winter is where he shines, spring and summer if i dont get some late gamething to protect you ,basically you are doomed and thats counting that you are upgraded on the early game he is very hard especially in spring and summer

[NeoDeusMachina]

I think the key difference is that with her, it really changes how you play because she can only eat meat. That makes it more interesting and different. With Wx-78, his only disadvantage is weak start and rain. Once you've got enough gear, you have high stats and rain will not affect you (well, maybe with summer hats, but so far, I've found it more convenient just to not use them at all). And then what is he? A standard character who happens to have high stats?

 

I agree with you, she offers a different playstyle and that is what makes her fun and dynamic to play! However, the downside of ''only eating meat'' is true for the first few days until you get a crockpot, which can be done as soon as day 1 or 2 if you really want it (only need to find 1 gold nugget and a couple of rocks). Then you start making meatballs. I don't know how you play with other characters, but personally I tend to get a crockpot early and I make meatballs with ALL my characters. Then, I will work on making better food in the form of either meaty stew or honey ham. I will also have jerky to preserve my food longer. I only really eat berries or carrots in the very early game. What I am trying to illustrate here is that her downside only applies before crockpot. Afterwards, her eating habits do not change her playstyle.

 

What does change her playstyle is that she ''needs'' to fight more often to heal or restore sanity. She can't eat dragonpie or cooked mushrooms, for example, although she has acces to other healing methods (healing salve, honey poultice) or sanity restoration methods (top hat, Tam'o'shanter, jerkys). However, since she excels at combat and fighting is part of her fun and dynamic aspects, I would not dare call this a downside.

 

Edit: Yes, WX78 once upgraded pretty much becomes a standard character with high stats. Eating spoiled food is an ''advantage'', but that wont change much about his playstyle. As you said, his main disadvantage is early game (especially on spring starts), and later in the game you will probably either don't care about rain and just benefit from getting struck by lightning (cool he can walk faster and emit a little bit of light) or have 100% rain protection. Overall his playstyle is pretty much standard. He just has high stats. As was pointed out earlier, having high stats in my opinion is not really enough to make him ''OP'' or ''godlike'', as any character can run a log armor and a pig helmet and have what ? 95% damage reduction ? Even if a character has 100hp, with 95% damage reduction, you still have 2000 effective hp. I think that alone is enough to resist any monster in the game (provided you can replace your armors if you get hit too much). I personally think it's ok to have him where he is, ''weak'' early game, high stats late game. He still is much less interesting to play than many other characters because he mostly has nothing more to offer than his stats. It's ok to have a character for players who need the high stats to stay alive and enjoy the game. If that makes it too easy for other players, they have other characters to choose from! Just my opinion, though.

[InaneDugong]

Well, you have written a lot of things right there, so I am not going to discus them. But there's something you may have missed. WX primary was created in vanilla don't starve, which had way less set pieces than rog.

Yeah, definitely. WX-78 certainly needs a bit of a compensation-change considering all the set pieces; and, I mean, there's literally 1 set piece that has Gears in the middle of 2 bishops.

 

However, I also did my Adventure runs on Vanilla when I was starting off. To elaborate: my 2nd-7th Adventure Mode attempts were with WX-78 and it was on Vanilla. It wasn't easy at first, but I soon figured that I didn't need to be that good at Don't Starve when I've got Frog Rain in A Cold Reception to get me easy Gears. So, as much as it's dependent on starting off on a non-ice level [King of Winter is possible as first map, but it's tight], all you need to finish Vanilla Adventure Mode is a few Gears (i.e. finishing any 1 of the 5 maps) and it's easy. 

 

And, well, once you finish 2 maps, you can't lose. On top of that, Gears give you so much Hunger and Health and Sanity that you can literally stock-pile them once you've got 250+ Health and use them for emergencies. I mean, in the final map of Adventure, I did it with 8 Gears on me the first time I tried it in Vanilla. It was way easier than it should have been. Just saying. 

[Tamazacat]

I think he's fine. I tried playing him back in my wee nooby days and I died on the second day from rain.

He's a huge challenge in the beginning, but rewarding midway and prevents the need to become a hermit late-game with the near-constant fear of hounds.

I don't play him right now because I'm happy with Wilson, and like some of you, I don't play certain characters because they just don't suit my play style.

Considering WX is a wee pansy at the beginning who can die from days and nights of rain before you can get protection... I'd say he's pretty much fine.

[KatieWolffSMILES]

well it does rain like ALOT in the new RoG idk i think hes ok ......

It seems you website has expired. No, I don't like cars, I was just curious.  

[KatieWolffSMILES]

It seems you website has expired. No, I don't like cars, I was just curious.  

Ignore the kissy face. -.- I don't even know that got there. Dang spazzy mouse.

[Tedion]

He is extremely OP. First of all, he can have 15 upgrades, which gets his stats to be well over anyone else's in the game. Many people say, "Oh that makes early game hard." Not really, because with a logsuit and spear, you can have many gears within the first few days. 

Also, he can eat stale food. One of the biggest troubles in the game is food management, and trying to eat food before it spoils. WX completely bypasses this.

 

Finally, his only debuff is rain. And even that could even be considered a buff. He loses health at an incredibly slow and negligible rate, and simple raingear will completely counter it. Even he was to get low on health, a lightning strike will heal him back up, along with providing night light and increased speed.

 

At least he will be a gear-hog in multiplayer, so people won't be inclined to play with him.