How Would You Balance The Characters For PVP?

[CaptainChaotica]

Awww.  (blushes) Mind you, if I need some of whatever the item is myself, I'll give you _some_ of it, not all--and if you demand rudely, you don't get anything.  But I tend to wander around just naturally gathering all the same stuff I would gather if I was playing singleplayer--with the end result that, well, I tend to have lots of different basic resources on my person at all times--unless just starting, or just revived.

...Notorious

[Axehilt]

7 hours ago, leonseye said:

As an avid PvPer in many games; notable in some, I find it interesting that you'd say this.

Asymmetric balance is the holy grail of PvP games.  It's often chased, but never actually achieved outside of a few rare gems, usually in the RTS, FPS, or fighting game genres.  And even those games regularly receive balancing changes.

What I understand is that trying to shoehorn that type of balance into a game like this will simply leave devs chasing their tails to try to please an unpleasable crowd (because what some feel is balanced, others inevitably will not).  

Look at what happened to Willow, and the overwhelming outcry that nerfing her into oblivion would somehow stop griefers from burning things.  Did it?  What about good ol' Woodie?  They pretty much murdered his Werebeaver form for the sake of PvP balance.  Is he balanced now?

There's a reason that even the most profitable and popular PvP games still receive regular balance updating.

However, I do appreciate you making the assumption that I'm some kind of moron who can't understand basic PvP balancing.  Thanks for that.

Ironic, considering that you went on to make the exact point that I did, which is that PvP is never going to be balanced in this game outside of just stripping out everything that makes the characters fun and unique, which I don't think anybody wants.

PS) You mention games like Starcraft, Street Fighter, and Overwatch?  Starcraft took HOW MANY YEARS to achieve the balance that is heralded as the closest to perfect in gaming?

Starcraft 2's David Kim has gone on record more than once talking about the impossible act of balancing that game as well.  

Street Fighter has flat-out officially stated that they will do balance changes at the end of EVERY year.  

Overwatch just launched and, of course, is still going through its balancing act, so I'm not sure why that's even worth mentioning.

And those are all games that had PvP balance in mind from the very offset, and while well-tuned, still have not and likely will never actually attain that goal of "balance".  Just a bit of food for thought from somebody who must be either too old or too young to have ever PvP'd, apparently.

Both asymmetry and game balance create interesting gameplay which increases longevity.  If you have both, you have a great game.  But to call it a "holy grail" is hyperbole.  It's just great to have and improves a game.

Do you believe players stick around in games that aren't entertaining (pleasing) to them?   They don't.  Not long at least.

Do you believe balance work gets done in games without players?  It doesn't.  There's no point.

Understanding those two points we come to your statement "chasing their tails to try to please an unpleasable crowd" and realize that the very fact that Starcraft did balance the game over years and years means that the crowd was in fact pleased.

The trick is to have a more nuanced perception of player opinion than: 'if there are complaints in the forums nobody is pleased.'  There are always complaints in the forums.

The trick is to have a more nuanced perception of balance than: 'if the game isn't 100% perfectly balanced, it's a disaster which cannot be fun to anyone.'

Again, Starcraft is proof of what I'm saying here.  You don't have to achieve absolute 100% flawless balance, you just have to keep taking steps which are predominantly in the right direction.

You can ignore the forums because half the time they're going to latch onto something popular which isn't necessarily the best or only strategy.  While he was the lead on Planetside 2, Matt Higby posted some excellent graphs (seen here; couldn't find Higby's original tweets).  These graphs show popularity (solid background bars) vs. performance (score/min, narrower bars).  Note the lack of correlation between what players think is overpowered, and what actually is overpowered.  In fact there's actually an inverse correlation between popularity and performance, but when you think about it that's expected since these are aggregate stats (so when a bunch of newbies latch onto the idea that Weapon A is overpowered, their combined weight actually makes the average performance much worse than the weapon's true balance.)

[leonseye]

I wouldn't call it "hyperbole", when you can literally only cite 1 game that was produced in 1998 (almost 20 years ago) that has achieved what can be called "almost-perfect balance".  Every other game has fallen short of that mark.  

And it took several years to achieve that goal.  So yes, the crowd can most definitely be said to be highly "unpleasable" in that regard.

You don't need to find Higby's tweets for me, as I was quite an active and vocal member of the community during Planetside 2's development and for a while beyond release; ironically, I argued much of what you are trying to "educate" me on.  I realize fully that 100% balance doesn't need to be achieved for players to have fun in a game.  That is nothing more than common sense.

I also realize that Planetside 2 and many of the other games you've named are actual PvP-focused games.  They were created to be that way from the start, unlike Don't Starve.

38 minutes ago, Axehilt said:

You don't have to achieve absolute 100% flawless balance, you just have to keep taking steps which are predominantly in the right direction.

And here we have the crux of your argument, and the meat of mine.

Klei is a small studio, and the portion working on DS and DST even smaller than that.  Do you honestly believe that the plan going forward is to constantly tweak the PvP portion of DST in hopes of achieving this mythical "balance" that everyone has their own idea of?

Do you think that it would be either efficient or cost-effective to develop a portion of a game that needs continual development attention for the foreseeable future while they already have so much on their plates?  

Already there are numerous threads about how the original Don't Starve has been "abandoned" in favor of DST, when Klei has already made comments that they would continue to try to support DS through bug fixes and porting over DST changes that make sense in single-player.  So many people want so much from them, and they are already doing what they can to deliver in a timely fashion.

I am absolutely not throwing my hands up and saying "just give up, it can never happen!", which you seem to think.  By all means, put forth the effort to do what you can to balance the PvP portion of the game as much as reasonably possible.  That is only fair to those who enjoy that aspect of gaming (again, I'm a pretty avid PvPer myself in many other games), and bought DST in hopes of fun PvP.

I am, however, saying that PvP balance will NEVER be fully achieved in this game, and at some point people are simply going to have to accept that.

You see, we are still talking about Don't Starve Together here, but you keep going off on these tangential examples from dissimilar situations.  Unfortunately, those examples really have no bearing on this conversation.

We are not going to go back and remake DST from the ground up to have PvP focus and balance in mind, so why are we talking about games that were?

[Axehilt]

40 minutes ago, leonseye said:

I wouldn't call it "hyperbole", when you can literally only cite 1 game that was produced in 1998 (almost 20 years ago) that has achieved what can be called "almost-perfect balance".  Every other game has fallen short of that mark.  

And it took several years to achieve that goal.  So yes, the crowd can most definitely be said to be highly "unpleasable" in that regard.

You don't need to find Higby's tweets for me, as I was quite an active and vocal member of the community during Planetside 2's development and for a while beyond release; ironically, I argued much of what you are trying to "educate" me on.  I realize fully that 100% balance doesn't need to be achieved for players to have fun in a game.  That is nothing more than common sense.

I also realize that Planetside 2 and many of the other games you've named are actual PvP-focused games.  They were created to be that way from the start, unlike Don't Starve.

And here we have the crux of your argument, and the meat of mine.

Klei is a small studio, and the portion working on DS and DST even smaller than that.  Do you honestly believe that the plan going forward is to constantly tweak the PvP portion of DST in hopes of achieving this mythical "balance" that everyone has their own idea of?

Do you think that it would be either efficient or cost-effective to develop a portion of a game that needs continual development attention for the foreseeable future while they already have so much on their plates?  

Already there are numerous threads about how the original Don't Starve has been "abandoned" in favor of DST, when Klei has already made comments that they would continue to try to support DS through bug fixes and porting over DST changes that make sense in single-player.  So many people want so much from them, and they are already doing what they can to deliver in a timely fashion.

I am absolutely not throwing my hands up and saying "just give up, it can never happen!", which you seem to think.  By all means, put forth the effort to do what you can to balance the PvP portion of the game as much as reasonably possible.  That is only fair to those who enjoy that aspect of gaming (again, I'm a pretty avid PvPer myself in many other games), and bought DST in hopes of fun PvP.

I am, however, saying that PvP balance will NEVER be fully achieved in this game, and at some point people are simply going to have to accept that.

You see, we are still talking about Don't Starve Together here, but you keep going off on these tangential examples from dissimilar situations.  Unfortunately, those examples really have no bearing on this conversation.

We are not going to go back and remake DST from the ground up to have PvP focus and balance in mind, so why are we talking about games that were?

It's hyperbole to act as though perfect balance matters.  As though 100% of the playerbase is skilled enough at the game for perfect balance to be relevant to them.  That's literally never the case.  Just because I named one game doesn't mean Starcraft 2, Street Fighter, TF2, and many other games didn't achieve great asymmetric balance.  None of them were absolutely perfect, but they were perfect enough that in high level play you saw a broad variety of choices picked.

'Balanced enough' has been good enough for intensely PVP-focused games. I'm not sure why you'd use that to imply it wouldn't be good enough for less PVP-focused games like Don't Starve.  It'd be more than sufficient.

Which is why "constantly tweak the PVP portion" is a strange thing to bring up, because that implies a lot more change than is actually necessary.

But why even bring that up?  Remember I said, "...PVP character balance is mostly just a waste of time" with the idea that PVP isn't this game's focus at all and effort spent trying to make it good will be less efficient than the dev team spending that same time improving PVE.

So your argument mostly seems to be made without having read that entire paragraph.

Although your second bold point is exactly the hyperbole I'm trying to get you to back off from, talking about balance being "fully achieved" as though full 100% perfect balance is actually important to achieve.

It's the goal to aim for.  It's the goal to take steps towards.  But perfection doesn't actually matter.

In Street Fighter 5 if you programmed the most perfect possible AI, one character would emerge as the scientifically best character.  The game's balance isn't perfect.  But in the Top 100 of the SF5 leaderboard, there are players of every character except the newly-released Alex. So you don't need balance to be "fully achieved" you only need to be balanced enough.

[leonseye]

16 minutes ago, Axehilt said:

Just because I named one game doesn't mean Starcraft 2, Street Fighter, TF2, and many other games didn't achieve great asymmetric balance.  None of them were absolutely perfect, but they were perfect enough that in high level play you saw a broad variety of choices picked.

.....................

Which is why "constantly tweak the PVP portion" is a strange thing to bring up, because that implies a lot more change than is actually necessary.

Again, I'm going to point out that every single example you have cited absolutely does require constant tweaks to maintain what still isn't even regarded as a balanced game.  To think that this game would not is simple naivete at its finest.

Also, I'm not going to "back off", because I simply disagree w/ you that this "asymmetric balance" can be easily achieved (or even reasonably close to it to appease most people) based on both history and experience.

PS)  I didn't "ignore" the paragraph where you basically just agreed w/ exactly what I wrote before you.  I didn't feel a need to address my own point and then argue against myself; how silly would that be?

[RyanandLink]

Spoiler

 

[Mikeadatrix]

I agree 100% with the suggested buffs and nerfs. PvP is just not as fun as it could be. . . Wilson's' buff I ESPECIALLY agree with, I mean, he is a scientist... Outside his quotes, we couldn't tell from game play.

[leonseye]

11 minutes ago, RyanandLink said:

  Reveal hidden contents

 

Pretty much the truth.  I'll stop derailing.

I just believe that these threads tread dangerously close to entering the perpetual "buff / nerf cycle" that pervades almost all PvP games, and I'd hate to see DST progress slowed by it.

[Axehilt]

12 minutes ago, leonseye said:

Again, I'm going to point out that every single example you have cited absolutely does require constant tweaks to maintain what still isn't even regarded as a balanced game.  To think that this game would not is simple naivete at its finest.

Also, I'm not going to "back off", because I simply disagree w/ you that this "asymmetric balance" can be easily achieved (or even reasonably close to it to appease most people) based on both history and experience.

PS)  I didn't "ignore" the paragraph where you basically just agreed w/ exactly what I wrote before you.  I didn't feel a need to address my own point and then argue against myself; how silly would that be?

"Still isn't even regarded as a balanced game" doesn't matter.  Want to know why?

• Well let's go back to the perfect Street Fighter 5 AI.
• Let's imagine that instead of showing one character to be overpowered, the result is all characters are 100% balanced.
• Do you think newbies, average players, and veterans would unanimously agree that such a game was 100% balanced?
• They won't.
• The Planetside 2 chart shows they won't.  They'll lose to one character a couple times and draw an immediate conclusion that the character beating them is overpowered (because the alternative is admitting they failed to play properly -- and people don't jump to that conclusion, due to the Dunning-Kruger Effect.)

So even if a game was perfectly balanced, it still wouldn't be regarded as balanced.  That's why it's a useless thing to say.  No matter how perfect the balance, players are more likely to blame game balance than their own lack of skill.

That's part of the reason constant tweaks aren't necessary (the other part being that players actually take a fair amount of time to learn and adapt to the new strategies, and then adapt again to the adaptation.)

Also maybe hold off on the "naive" comments.  I've worked in the game industry 16 years now, and all my work has been either partially or completely balance-related.

[Mario384]

Remember I didn't say this was something for the devs, I just wanted to know what the players felt.  Also, I am making a mod that balances PVP characters based on what is said here.  (I guess I should've said that in the original post; my bad!)

[leonseye]

12 minutes ago, Mario384 said:

Also, I am making a mod that balances PVP characters based on what is said here.  (I guess I should've said that in the original post; my bad!)

Yeah, you prolly should've led w/ that.  : P

[Arlesienne]

4 hours ago, Mikeadatrix said:

Wilson's' buff I ESPECIALLY agree with, I mean, he is a scientist... Outside his quotes, we couldn't tell from game play.

"It's all... pine-y" - the Scientist of the Year.

Axe, the Dunning-Kruger Effect does come to mind, but you can call forth simpler types of cognitive bias. It is not as much "I Am the Mighty" as "Easier to See Faults in Others" to be honest. But being an insider too (my work is mostly linked with narration and the behavioural elements of games in regard to literature, you do sound more favourable towards the ludological approach), you already know "balance" and "fair play" are (re)defined by the players on a regular basis. In other words, you are right that there is no such thing as the true balance, but you did not explain the others why there isn't.

[leonseye]

The simple truth is that he completely ignored the actual substance of what I was saying, which is:

The game won't ever achieve perfect balance, so as long as it gets reasonably close, people will have to accept that is the closest it will ever be and not expect development resources to constantly be used to tweak balance for the sake of PvP going forward.

Of course, we all know that won't happen.

We've already butchered 2 characters for the sake of PvP balance (NEITHER of those 2 characters are balanced still, btw), and neutered the start for a 3rd (whom also is still not balanced), and we haven't even really begun to actually balance the game.

I'm just wary that 3 years for now, we'll still be listening to PvP complaints and wasting resources on this nigh-unattainable ideal instead of putting those resources toward real content.

[Mario384]

7 minutes ago, leonseye said:

The simple truth is that he completely ignored the actual substance of what I was saying, which is:

The game won't ever achieve perfect balance, so as long as it gets reasonably close, people will have to accept that is the closest it will ever be and not expect development resources to constantly be used to tweak balance for the sake of PvP going forward.

Of course, we all know that won't happen.

We've already butchered 2 characters for the sake of PvP balance, and neutered the start for a 3rd, and we haven't even really begun to actually balance the game.

I'm just wary that 3 years for now, we'll still be listening to PvP complaints and wasting resources on this nigh-unattainable ideal instead of putting those resources toward real content.

>,< You know, I'm not asking if it's worthwhile for Klei to spend resources on PVP balance, I just wanted to know what the people wanted regarding character balances.  If you want to argue why you hate PVP, etc...  Take it to a private message, and don't derail the main topic, Por favor.

[Arlesienne]

I know the reason for this! Klei wants us to learn to use the LUA to introduce our own fixes! Willow's nerf led me to edit her in the LUA, same with Woodie, now all is clear!

Thanks to a sip of marsh water the special nectar from the hallowed Potato Cup, I came one step closer to enlightenment.

[leonseye]

Fair enough.  I was just replying to what @Arlesienne wrote, and your actual intent for the topic wasn't clear from your OP, which was why it was assumed that Klei would be the one implementing any changes (and not you via mod).

That's how we came to be on the topic of balancing and resources in the first place.

/shrug

[Arlesienne]

5 minutes ago, leonseye said:

Fair enough.  I was just replying to what @Arlesienne wrote, and your actual intent for the topic wasn't clear from your OP, which was why it was assumed that Klei would be the one implementing any changes (and not you via mod).

That's how we came to be on the topic of balancing and resources in the first place.

/shrug

I agree it was unclear. You could have said you intend to make a mod from the start.

[Mario384]

Alright, alright, I apolgize, but now that we know what the topic is, maybe you have ideas?

[Mikeadatrix]

LUA modding you say? Well time to make Wilson, Death... Destroyer of Worlds.

[AnonymousKoala]

52 minutes ago, Mikeadatrix said:

LUA modding you say? Well time to make Wilson, Death... Destroyer of Worlds.

Way ahead of you, I made shaving spawn Deerclops.

If someone has a gigantic mythical half cyclops half deer they're a destroyer of worlds in my book.

[t0panka]

PVP needs only few little changes to be great:

• Wolfgang needs some little downside to his mighty form
• WX-78 needs some downside to overcharge/eating gears
• Wicker needs less range for STS + earmuffs to block STS, she still can make all items faster than anyone else and that should be enough for her to be good in PVP!
• Maybe Maxwell could get something? I dont know about him because i didnt play him much in pvp but he is really weak. On the otherside YES i was destroyed by Maxwells too

Otherwise everything else is good as it is. No need to change!

Lets take PVP situation, 1v1, everyone is geared up somehow:

• What is the difference between Wilson, Willow, Webber and Woodie? Almost none ... some small differences that people can take advantage of like easy effigy with Wilson, no need for fire with Willow, easy wood + werebear with Woodie and spiders with Webbz
• Wigfrid is too good? What? She is awfull because she cant heal properly (this is great downside to her perks btw)
• Wendy too weak? She has another player with her = Abigail and YES i was destroyed by Wendy in PVP because she can stunt people with Abi + in caves/ruins she is really good
• Wes? He is most awesome character. Not just "wes is bes" hype but i LOVE kill someone as Wes or being killed by Wes on PVP. That is just SO MUCH win or SO MUCH humiliation! Never change Wes

Anyway how about we stop looking into the smallest things that are in game and change them by 1% but rather look into future and start thinking about NEW items/features? How about more ranged weapons? Different armors and helms? More ways to surprise other players?

[Arlesienne]

More ranged weapons is a must. I am still shocked by having to get a mod to craft bows. I mean, WHY???

More traps too. Use those stingers for something. Something with tentacles perhaps?

[artemiyME]

Ok so my understanding of the problem: 

PVP should be a skill-based part of DST, as many other PVP games are.

Solution: 

The way to allow particular person to display level of their skill, given an average rng/luck, the amount of losses and wins with each particular DST character on a large sample size should be consistent between them all (exception is Wes of course, and Wilson). That is what i think is a "magic formula" of balancing each character.

Also I would like to point out there should be a balance based on time, so say there is a early game, middle, and late game characters, but since the nature of people showing up in different times on server, that could be a skewed division. Having everyone "peak" in mid-game (say ~10-day prep) is best choice by me.

Also I believe in minimalism and staying true to original DS/ beta DST. That means achieve magic formula with minimal amount of modifications with tools that game already provides, and just the right amount of tweaking on numbers.

There also should be testing and crowd-sourcing, that means baby-steps of tweaking: introduce a basic set of tweaks with lesser values and see how players react to changes, keep tweaking the numbers until majority can agree that "this is the spot"

with that said, here is my view on Mario's suggestions plus mine as well:

WILSON: sounds good, but replace science Machine with faster growing beard and maybe let him make some magic items with it without science (like effigy)? Wicker has science, Wilson is an experimenter

Willow: Maybe replace Fire immunity with 0.2-0.5hp/sec hp loss, to avoid pointless chases through thick burning forests when willow is just running from a fight almost dead? Fire staff is probably too much... rather have endless lighter (only endless for willow). Remove Freezing when insane, most definitely. Make Bernie Sanders not pickable (like lucy) and generally buff him so he can fight and has more hp (so something like a mini-Abigail activated by insanity). Also make her light stuff on fire automatically when insane again.

Wolfgang: I'd leave him alone, let him be a base character everyone should be looking up to limiting wolfgang (or any character for the fact) to non-magic items is limiting someone in options when they might really need it, and that is no fun(say you got chased in caves to ancient machine, you can't run back cause you know u'll die, what do you do with all tulecite/gems/gears???). DST is about finding a solution in a difficult situation, and that should be the case for PVP as well

Wendy: Give Abigail better brain, yes please! Meh on upgrading Abi(idk maybe). Since she is like a Goth girl make her lose less sanity from magic items (night sword, night armor, one man band, etc.) and less sanity drain from Night/ghosts as well (say 50% less on all for starters)

Wicker: Lower range of STS from 30 to 20 (my pvp servers have that feature, and it works like a charm, and nobody complains anymore :D), Earmuff block is a good idea, but it's too much, as I found out after testing it for a bit on one server and from my server community, making earmuffs opponent drowsy instead of sleeping is marginally-acceptable (still limiting I feel).

WX: please please please no gear crafting, unless it takes like 10 tallibird eggs to make them :D. No stone/gold though to craft those, it will just end up him using all resources on server for gears. If crafting gears is something people really want - make the crafting recipe contain only renewable resources, like say koala trunks/bat wings/butter... WX's problem is surviving early game, late game he is a god if he can get to ruins. So focus on that I'd say. Also make him take damage when wet same as if it is raining, so it can work as buff and nerf at same time - he can wake up if he is wet, but also makes him vulnerable to water baloons.

WOODIE: More Lucy dmg - sure why not! make logs give food - don't really like that since what that means is woodie cah hide somewhere in corner of caves and live there without need of any food, and that is a stale idea for active pvp server

Beaver: Still confused on condition for lower sanity drain, so what you mean is that he has to chop but not reach 25 log meter by chopping, but naturally? Why not give it to him every time? Dont think giving beaver sanity from eating logs is good idea, you dont want him to run in beaver mode forever. And Woodie is for that to restore sanity with pine cones, I say give beaver 3hp per log, 5 per living log. General train of tought with woodie should be - make woodie best for survival, make beaver good during fights only. Also maybe he is only one char that has natural STS protection (non-sleeping, drowsy from STS - yes)

WES: Sure balloons can give sanity, depends how much, do they stack and generally you'll have balloons floating around either way, anyone can use them. If you give them sanity I would say do not allow stacked ballons give more sanity than, say, 3 ghosts would on server.

Unsure about maxwell, I do not know much about his gameplay, I only know that he can die quickly in early game, so hp would be nice, or a built-in straw armor or like 40% dmg reduction at cost of sanity (40% dmg goes to sanity reduction), also if his book can be picked up by others when active - I'd make it not pickable. Maybe a way to make nightmare fuel is nice too

Wigfrid: I view her as another "Base" character that does need to be upgrader/degraded necessarily (going back to minimalist thing). Not sure about sleeping thing, as we see it nowadays pan flute is removed on decent PVP servers, therefore there are only few situations this could apply to (correct me if I'm wrong). 1. Wig and Wicker teaming that makes it a tiny tiny nerf since she has to wait for wicker to hit enemy first. 2. Wig teaming with someone and her teammate gets STS'd but not her - she cannot wake up her teammate - again a tiny tiny nerf since those situations are very very limited.

Her starter spear was removed since the spawn camping is stong, but with new wilderness-survival mix mode its less prevalent now

Webber: doubling his fist dmg is cute, but in reality its less than useful since swing time and delay is so long, it will make no difference. I don't know about speed boosts, my brain says no cause that means in a vanilla spear/wood armor battle webber will win cause of speed boost he can chase opponents easier and they can never lose him - thing brings me up to another idea about WX  - to help him in early game maybe he can have a starting speed boost of say 10% and with every gear he eats it gets decreased so after say 5 gears he's at 100% speed again. Back to webber - So I was thinking since webber's sanity is not that high, maybe make all raw foods edible by him without penalty and only cooked monster meat can give him say 3hp instead of 0. Also how 10% about speed boost while running on webbing? And also make him spawn spiders when he steps on webbing (similar to how nightmares step on webbing) Also make ALL spiders neutral to him (I am actually unsure if this is the case already). Make Spider dens when placed unburnable/or lose less hp for less duration so they don't get destroyed from one burning tree.

ADDITIONALLY as some items could be a part of pvp tweaking, and something to have fun with as well - meaning take useless survival items and make them useful/fun in pvp! Improve water baloons, pitchforks (make them do more dmg to wicherbottom and make it scream "BURN THE WITCH! BURN THE WITCH" :DDD), make hammer do more dmg to Werebeaver "hammer the mole" reference. Make tooth traps invisible on placement, so only person who put it down knows where it is, and make it do dmg to all players (so-called mines). Make new weapon with butter that makes people drop items at random like in Twitch Plays mod - Butterfingers event? . Maybe also make craftable pan flute that does not use mandrakes - but some other obscure materials (still remove starting pan flute).etc etc...

sorry if I missed any of the points already brought up, since this discussion exploded beyond proportions I can possibly read. I initially wanted this discussion to figure out for myself if I can have mods added to my servers to "help" other characters who do not get used as often. And what ended up happening people throwing in crazy ideas to add "spice" into the game. My intentions were much less drastic, and subtle in line with their initial purposes,  this is how I really imagine PVP ...

Thanks all for reading

[EuedeAdodooedoe]

A few suggestions:

* Willow being immune to fire, being able to craft fire staff with a prestihatitator and bernie instead of having less hp and fighting monsters to have normal hp (1000) and each time a nightmare hits him, the nightmare dies and loots nightmare fuel. The immunity makes Willow what she is. A Willow couldn't run away by burning down forests forever (it takes a while for a burnt forest to regrow by itself), plus it gives a reason for people to get scalemail as due to fire damage being nerfed, nobody has any point in getting it anymore. The firestaff being possible to craft with prestihatitator as her gives a nice touch to her fire capabilities. Bernie with the strats I've described would be hugely useful; a way for Willow to farm nightmare fuel when insane. Also, making lighter as her special item, which cannot be crafted, can only be picked up by her and... Perhaps acting like Lucy, so when Willow crafts a torch to use, the lighter swaps with the torch. With all this in place, Willow can not only become fun to use, but also pretty triumphant in combat or at least in the process of preparation.

* Do something about the team-stunlocking. I generally try to avoid and have a distaste for people who team because it's just so OP in 2 or more V 1 situations. 2 V 1 = the two players have a guaranteed win if they get you in one place and then attack you one after another. Also the weather pain goes with along with the same issue as a guaranteed death/kill because of the stun lock. I'd suggest players being able to still move whilst stun locked by other players or weather paint, but at 25% slower speed, but just about any change for this would be great.

* For Maxwell, I would suggest that he could craft all prestihatitator items without a prestihatitator and all shadow manipulator tier items with a prestihatitator as well as start out with Shadow armour, which he could wear without his sanity draining. This way, his fraleness would be outbalanced with his night armour (kind of like with the fact that Wigfrid only starts out with a battle helmet in your servers, but not with a battle spear) and he could craft more night armours once he got a prestihatitator going and has been to the swamp for some reeds.

* May be if Wendy has lost Abigail/doesn't have the flower on her, then when she picks up a flower the petals of that flower turn into Abigail's flower and the Abigail's flower that was away from her would turn into a normal flower. That wayyou wouldn't need to craft nightmare fuel or get nightmare fuel if you cannot get her back. And other players notbbeing able to pick up the flower as well?

* Werebeaver not dropping armour perhaps and instead of having high resistance by default could wear head armour. Or have both. And perhaps lose less sanity? Because fights can last quite a bit and though losing sanity is werebeaver can make you not stay as werebeaver all the time, having a huge sanity drain by default can really be quite bad when in combat as him with another player.

* Perhaps tentacles only being possible to spawn with On Tentacles on marsh turf? To avoid spawning them in unexpected places and near spawn points or at least as much.

* WX-78 getting System Overload from being hit by Charged Volt Goats and hammering of GMoose eggs?

* Spider dens being inflammable (though taking damage from fire) in general would make sense as silk is inflammable both in the game and irl!

* To accompensate for the fact that players can move at 75% of their speed whilst stunlocked, perhaps when someone is hit by an ice stave, they become slower as they get hit more times in general? Or when frozen more to move slower?

* Although generally looked down upon, walling someone in whilst they are put to sleep to get a guaranteed kill can still be an issue. So, what if you simply could not place walls very close to a player or whenyou place a wall down, they wake up, illustrating the idea that construction is really loud

* Why get rid of Pan Flute entirely instead of rebalancing it is what I don't understand. If, just like for STS, pan flute put others to sleep at 20 or so range and at the end of its animation instead of at the beginning, it could be well balanced, I'd say. Though removing it from spawning near Glommer statue is a wise decision.

 

Edit:

* Oh and ranged weapons need some love too! I would suggest, since due to fire damage being nerfed hugely, made fire darts the bottom of the barrell (you need 7 of them to kill 1 spider now! Rather just beat the spider with your fists!) so I would suggest:

1. Blow pipes. Any any type of dart can be put inside it, but only one at a time (or 20 darts max at the same time, depends how best it would be?). The blow pipe needs 2 reeds to be crafted and an Alchemy Engine to prototype.

2. When crafting darts, they don't need the reed component anymore and you can craft 4 instead of just one, but with the same amount of resources you previously needed (e.g. 4 sleep darts for 1 stinger and 1 jet feather. This would mean a with a blow pipe and just one crafting of a jet feather you could put a player to sleep.

3. Fire dart deals 50 damage by default as well as setting the target on fire. Dunno how much damage that would be to a player normally though, but considering that a blow dart deals 100 and you could craft x4 with the same resources as before plus with the exception of reeds, I'd say it's quite balanced for a ranged weapon.

4. Boomerang deals crappy amount of damage and has only 10 uses. Perhaps giving it more uses (30 or so) and it dealing more damage (75 may be) could make it more triumphant? It does require alchemy engine to craft and can be caught by your opponent and deal damage to you if you fail to catch it, even though you can throw multiple of them at the same time, so.