Maxwell... the miner ? yyy what?

[oCrapaCreeper]

On 3/12/2017 at 3:56 PM, JohnWatson said:

Maxwell isn't overshadowed by Woodie, it's the complete opposite. Maxwell's minions chop down trees faster Woodie can.

This is actually not true anymore. At least, not when it's just 1 minion. A while ago the chop speed of the shadows was nerfed down to the speed of a regular character holding down the work button (rather than as fast as possible, something similar to when you spam your work button while chopping/mining), and of course, Woodie chops faster than that.

[Tumalu]

Oh yeah, it's true that Maxwell's minion's chop speed was nerfed at some point. 3 of them probably chop faster than human Woodie, sure... but a good chunk of the time when harvesting Woodie should be turned beaver, which greatly evens the playing field; especially if you're fine with ignoring stumps and just mass-burning them after. (In that case, beaver fells a tree every few moments. Stumps take as long to gnaw out as an entire tree and fill your meter as much, so they're sort of a waste of your transformation time.)

At the very least the chop speed is comparable enough post-shadowchopper-nerf that the difference really doesn't matter; they both chop several times faster than other characters and the difference between 4x faster and 5x faster is negligible. It's a matter of "Maxwell also has miners and can use Wicker books" vs. "Woodie doesn't have HALF MAX HP, or need to occasionally farm fuel, in exchange for full moon curse."

I think they're even on the sanity bit; Max rarely has to worry about it because it's entirely passive, but Woodie can quickly blast it up if something depletes it which Max can't do quite as well- using shadow gear against a boss for awhile or in the ruins can actually be a significant drain for him, although this isn't a big problem. And either can use their gimmick to drop their sanity like a stone, with no worries about getting it back up after.

[The Curator]

Maxwell's lower health basically is the developers stating, use shadow puppets.

But the game tells you not to, because if you use the mining and chopping puppets they destroy everything around you. Which not only is inefficient for the world, but it is just downright obnoxious and tedious to have them constantly running around after dismantling the environment. They do not even come to your aid in combat, despite them having viable tools as weapons. It is like the developers got lazy, or forgot, and decided not to code in the basic already existing function of A.I only interacting with what the player is.

The Duelists at least make up for Maxwell's health with a higher damage output, but their inability to take on even remotely difficult enemies makes them trivial.

 

So in the end, Maxwell loses both ways. His gatherers are inefficient, destructive and simply amateurishly coded and so they will constantly wreck the world and leave resources lying around. And his Duelists are good for fighting anything from wolves to spiders, to koalephants to beefalo. But their threshold of survivability is still exceptionally narrow.and will set limits to your combat abilities. The fact his gatherers will not even fight for him also means that you only gain combat benefits when you have Duelists, which means Maxwell has to choose. Which would not be so bad if you did not need to sacrifice tools and nightmare fuel everytime you summon one puppet.

Or you could just play as Wigfrid, who has four major boons and a single negligible quirk. Because balance.

[maxiaogua]

People who says Maxwell isn't bad is totally misreading the op. Op is obviously not talking about game balance - though Maxwell isn't on most pro players' top-tier list, Maxwell is sure one of the better characters to play in DST comparing to Wilson, Woodie or Willow. Also, Maxwell is arguably the best support-role in DST.

But it's not about the balance, it's about personality. I remember some devs stated that they cares more about personality-related perks rather than making them balanced but honestly I don't think his perks fit his personality in DST. If you thinking about it this way - the origin boss who manipulated the world, is now ONLY A TEAM SUPPORTER who can gathers resources (logs, rocks, living logs and nightmare fuels) more effectively than anyone else. Oh of course he can read Wicker's books for her as well, but that's all about him. Where have his dapperness and self-containedness gone? Maxwell the Chopper/Miner/Bookreader, seriously?

I was Maxwell main in DS but only plays Maxwell in DST when my team needs a support character (and can't have fun when I have to). Maxwell is definitely more self-contained in DS and is my top3 ruins speedrun characters (right after Wolfgang and WX-78). The huge sanity boost and multiplicatively stacked damage absorption from head/chest armors make ruins a easy mode for DS Maxwell, but not anymore in DST. 

People saying the sanity nerf isn't big don't understand how important it was for Maxwell's unique dapper playstyle. A lot of tricks could be done with that 20 per second sanity boost. Say, I could keep Maxwell running around in ruins and eat all things raw without stopping to cook food or make crockpot meals once, but doing that in DST would make Maxwell insane. Sure nightmare creatures are easy to handle, but it's disturbing your current process and making you distracted. The armor mechanic changes in DST doesn't quite influence other characters too much, but for Maxwell - the dapper guy who has the lowest health pool - is totally a disaster. Not to mention the armors in DST have even less durability than they were in DS.

All in all Maxwell in DS is a self-contained badass and in DST he is just a great support character. But being supportive shouldn't be Maxwell's perk, and it's even more conflicting when you're role-playing Maxwell, saying arrogant words meanwhile most of the work you do is only collecting logs/rocks for your team. Really? Why our dapper guy should be only supportive?!

[Sinister_Fang]

1 hour ago, maxiaogua said:

Wall of text

Maxwell is still the same character. It's just his sanity regen is lowered (so he's not the op, almost godmode character he was in DS) and he got better puppets (for the most part). Oh, and he lost his starting armor, weapon and gem, but that's just for obvious balance reasons. For the most part, he still works the same as he did in DS. It's just more care needs to be taken with his sanity. And just because Maxwell is good at gathering resources doesn't mean he can't do other things.

Also, you could technically consider just about every non-combat focused character as a "support" character. Everyone helps out each other in some way and helps to support the team.

[maxiaogua]

3 hours ago, Sinister_Fang said:

Maxwell is still the same character. It's just his sanity regen is lowered (so he's not the op, almost godmode character he was in DS) and he got better puppets (for the most part). Oh, and he lost his starting armor, weapon and gem, but that's just for obvious balance reasons. For the most part, he still works the same as he did in DS. It's just more care needs to be taken with his sanity. And just because Maxwell is good at gathering resources doesn't mean he can't do other things.

Also, you could technically consider just about every non-combat focused character as a "support" character. Everyone helps out each other in some way and helps to support the team.

Still you're talking about balance. And why consider DS Maxwell op when Wolfgang, WX-78, Wickerbottom are still above him in DS, and even WX-78 gets buffed in DST (with better starting status and the lightning books from Wicker) when he is already op? If we really care about character balance that much, Wolfgang/WX-78/Wickerbottom deserves more nerfs and Willow/Wendy/Wilson deserves some buffs.

Personally I don't care balance too much, instead I wish each character could has their own unique playstyle that fits their personality. Wolfgang deals 2x damage when in full-belly because he's a strongman, Wendy deals 0.75x damage because she's a weak girl. Maxwell "is dapper but frail" so he gets huge sanity boost and the lowest health in DS, but the "dapper" part is not anymore in DST, only the "frail" part is left. The key argument here is Maxwell in DST could only work with a playstyle that didn't fit his personality AT ALL. You listed nearly all the changes from Maxwell from DS to DST and still stated he works the same "for the most part" - but isn't the only same part just the basic hunger/sanity/health status? I won't use the phrase that way 'cause if so, DST Willow can be called the same character as DS Willow "for the most part". Willow and Woodie are the two primary examples of getting nerfed in DST and I wish them could get some love from devs, but they still have a unique playstyle fits their personality which is better than Maxwell.

Sure everyone could be supportive but being supportive is quite different from being only supportive. Woodie is less efficient in support role but his normal health means more room for mistakes in boss fight/ruins rush (and he's really helpful in Toadstool fight). Maxwell? No. He's only dapper in pvp servers, how often do you see Maxwell played in non-supportive role in non-pvp servers?

[AnonymousKoala]

On 13.3.2017 at 1:26 AM, voyager156 said:

Ok, so if Maxwell is so great, as You guys / gals wrote - why almost no one plays him?

Fragility. If your ping is low or you don't trust yourself to not take dumb damage, Maxwell is not a good pick. I love him but I rarely am able to play him with my keyboard and general ping usually deciding I take a lot of unncessary damage in DST.

[Tumalu]

3 hours ago, maxiaogua said:

 I remember some devs stated that they cares more about personality-related perks rather than making them balanced

I do think Maxwell's really neat design-wise like that, and a fun character. I consider playing him occasionally. But yeah, halved max hp is brutal in DST, so it's something I have to think about. It's manageable, and if you can keep from dying much than you can consider it a non-issue and suddenly Maxy is a fine choice, but yeah. (And as the last poster just said... if you have a little lag, that makes him much harder to manage. He can't afford several extra hits until you've got lots of night armor and healing items.)

But, if I actually liked playing Woodie design-wise I'd probably choose him instead powers-wise. Unfortunately his aesthetic clashes with my preferences too much, so along with Wolfgang he's one of the few characters that just feels incredibly unfitting for me to try to play :V

I do wish Maxwell's duelists felt a little more useful, but I guess it's just a better of... like Abigail, they're useful against non-major fights (you just have to be covering for them a bit more actively than for Abby to keep 'em alive, and they don't have her mob control) but on the flipside they have a more tangible summon cost to make you wonder, "Do I really need to bother burning nightmare fuel to kill this?". I guess it depends how much you feel like farming fuel to keep puppet use going, since it's not -hard- if you have a few buddies.

[voyager156]

7 hours ago, maxiaogua said:

All in all Maxwell in DS is a self-contained badass and in DST he is just a great support character. But being supportive shouldn't be Maxwell's perk, and it's even more conflicting when you're role-playing Maxwell, saying arrogant words meanwhile most of the work you do is only collecting logs/rocks for your team. Really? Why our dapper guy should be only supportive?!

My thoughts exactly

4 hours ago, maxiaogua said:

Personally I don't care balance too much, instead I wish each character could has their own unique playstyle that fits their personality.

Well, characters should be balanced - it's always good --> but more importantly, characters should be interesting and unique.

For me what happened to Maxwell in DST is just strange... He was so fun to play in singleplayer DS.

[Toros]

Maxwell is very solidly in the middle of the caste in terms of power, and if you combine his inherent dapperness with actual sanity items he easily gets tons of sanity back, and he can use all the other options to regulate sanity on top of that.  He's a strong pick for a team, and Maxwell's theme isn't that he's a villain, it's that he is a puppetmaster who uses shadowmagic to do things for him, which he fits perfectly.

DS maxwell is less interesting and less useful than DST maxwell, and the "Rezecib's Rebalance" mod makes him even better as you can toggle them active and inactive and give them different tools without having to make a new one. It also adds torchbearers and the ability to make them carry 4 slots of items, and pick things up off the ground.

 

so you can have a minion chopping, a minion digging, and a minion picking up logs and pinecones while you just watch, and when you're done you can ranged toggle the chopper and they stop.

 

Then, you take the items from the carrier shadow, give them all pickaxes, and they trash all the boulders while you pick up the gold and rocks.

 

Maxwell is good, Rezecib made him fantastic.

[Sinister_Fang]

7 hours ago, maxiaogua said:

how often do you see Maxwell played in non-supportive role in non-pvp servers?

Considering that I'm a Maxwell main, almost all the time. All he needs is a top hat and night armor and his low health almost isn't an issue. And in the few occasions I'm not Maxwell, I can still collect rocks and log and just generally support my team.

7 hours ago, maxiaogua said:

And why consider DS Maxwell op when Wolfgang, WX-78, Wickerbottom are still above him in DS

His sanity regen of 20/m in DS means you can neglect sanity management entirely, even with frequent use of dark swords and night armor. I find him overpowered in DS due to his ability to use the best equipment in the game with little drawback and with the fact that you can ignore part of the game when it comes to dealing with sanity. Sure, Wolfgang and Wickerbottom are still good choices, but I'd still say Maxwell is just as good (if not better) because unlike Wicker sanity isn't an issue and unlike Wolfgang you don't need to hoard tons of food.

7 hours ago, maxiaogua said:

The key argument here is Maxwell in DST could only work with a playstyle that didn't fit his personality AT ALL.

I find it even more fitting then it was in DS. Instead of using puppets to aid you with mining and chopping, you can have your shadows do all the work while Maxwell just sits back and watches them work. And when it comes to combat, you need to know what your doing and kite properly. So he needs to be knowledgeable to be a competent fighter. How do these traits not fit Maxwell's personality?

8 hours ago, maxiaogua said:

Maxwell "is dapper but frail" so he gets huge sanity boost and the lowest health in DS, but the "dapper" part is not anymore in DST, only the "frail" part is left.

But Maxwell gets to be even more dapper now. He has a reason to wear dapper clothing making him the most dapper of all. (It's just too bad there's no black top hat skin. He'd look real good wearing that)

8 hours ago, maxiaogua said:

You listed nearly all the changes from Maxwell from DS to DST and still stated he works the same "for the most part" - but isn't the only same part just the basic hunger/sanity/health status?

In DS and DST I use him in much the same way. Dark sword + night armor. The difference is that in DST I need actually manage sanity a little bit. And I'm fine with that. I actually prefer DST Maxwell over DS Maxwell because of this.

 

[NeddoFreddo]

I just think it'd be nice if you could change the puppets a bit after they were summoned, i.e. setting loggers to only chop fully grown trees, chop all trees, or chop nothing. Diggers could have options like dig everything, dig graves and stumps only, and dig nothing. Miners could just be on/off.

[Maslak]

17 minutes ago, NeddoFreddo said:

dig graves and stumps only, and dig nothing\

I don't think there is anything they can dig besides graves and stumps tho.

[Destros09]

2 hours ago, Maslak said:

I don't think there is anything they can dig besides graves and stumps tho.

Moleworms and rabbits

(so basically nothing)

[Sinister_Fang]

2 hours ago, NeddoFreddo said:

Miners could just be on/off.

It would be nice if they had the same option that loggers do when it comes to marble shrubs.

[maxiaogua]

12 hours ago, Sinister_Fang said:

Considering that I'm a Maxwell main, almost all the time. All he needs is a top hat and night armor and his low health almost isn't an issue. And in the few occasions I'm not Maxwell, I can still collect rocks and log and just generally support my team.

Glad to see there's someone to play Maxwell not only supportive. But from what I observed, I never met any Maxwell who's not doing chopping/mining all days in public servers, and when a Maxwell joined the server, the others just asked him to chop/mine which is really annoying. I also played in some private community server with friends and they also only choose Maxwell for chopping/mining purpose. I don't have stats handy, but I doubt how many Maxwells are like you.

Quote

His sanity regen of 20/m in DS means you can neglect sanity management entirely, even with frequent use of dark swords and night armor. I find him overpowered in DS due to his ability to use the best equipment in the game with little drawback and with the fact that you can ignore part of the game when it comes to dealing with sanity. Sure, Wolfgang and Wickerbottom are still good choices, but I'd still say Maxwell is just as good (if not better) because unlike Wicker sanity isn't an issue and unlike Wolfgang you don't need to hoard tons of food.

Actually, any disadvantages that related to hunger/sanity/health regen isn't a problem in late game, and that's why Wicker and Wolfgang are the strongest character in late game despite having issues with hunger/sanity regen - why cares when you have too many foods (jerkys and taffys) to eat? I won't called 20/min sanity regen is overpowered because it's only handy in early to mid game, especially when go rushing ruins early, and that's the only reason that Maxwell can meet up to the top-tier of Wolfgang/WX-78/Wicker. And now that part is gone in DST. I could clear ruins before winter with Maxwell in DS (also with Wolfgang and WX-78) if I have luck with finding necessary resources, but that can never be done with DST Maxwell.

Now DST Maxwell has become a second-tier character like Wigfrid in terms of character capability. Both has similar perks - Maxwell can ignore part of the game when it comes to dealing with sanity, and Wigfrid can ignore the part of health regen. But again, that doesn't make them superior or overpowered than others since sanity/health regen are really easy to handle in late game, it's just all about their unique playstyles ("fk sanity I'll just eat all meats raw" vs "fk health I'll just fight some spiders"). I don't really understand why people thought 20/m sanity boost is overpowered - it's only overpowered for reading Wicker's books early or playing on pvp server, otherwise it's not a big deal considering everyone can get Bee Queen Crown in late game which makes sanity management totally a joke. And yeah, Maxwell is one of the worstest character for fighting Bee Queen alone unless you're using some glitches, and ironcally, Wicker who should have the weakest sanity regen ability actually have the best sanity regen method if the player knows how to solo the Bee Queen in the first autumn.

Also we're talking about the ideal situation - in any server that has 80+ ping, Wigfrid becomes the top-tier and Maxwell becomes the trash-tier. There's always less than 5 servers with 50- ping for me (I believe that's also true for anyone who don't live in East Europe or U.S) and that's why everyone loves playing Wigfrid in DST and no one loves playing Maxwell. The lagging is killing you. Playing alone? How can Maxwell solo Bee Queen/Toadstool without using any glitches?

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I find it even more fitting then it was in DS. Instead of using puppets to aid you with mining and chopping, you can have your shadows do all the work while Maxwell just sits back and watches them work. And when it comes to combat, you need to know what your doing and kite properly. So he needs to be knowledgeable to be a competent fighter. How do these traits not fit Maxwell's personality?

Sure DST Maxwell has better puppets (except Shadow Duelists) than he has in DS which is good. But speaking of combat, it's not all about kiting, it's also about room for mistakes. I know how to kite all the mobs and seasonal bosses, but mistake DO happens. That's why I actually thought the armor mechanics change is what influences Maxwell the most (even than the sanity nerf), it just makes very little room for mistakes. Also you can't kite new raid bosses or a bunch of shadow monkeys plus terrorbeaks during the nightmare cycle, you dead if you made just one simple mistake or lagged for just 1 sec. Maxwell can't survive ruins like he used to be and it just becomes too tedious for him to live underground. I'd say he has lost his close connection to the underground world or the darkside of the world, and become a normal puppet manipulator.

I was Maxwell main in DS but seldom play Maxwell in DST, I think I've stated my reasons clearly enough. I can't convince everyone who disagrees. But all the Maxwells I've seen in DST, are Maxwell the Chopper or Miner.

[Sinister_Fang]

1 hour ago, maxiaogua said:

Actually, any disadvantages that related to hunger/sanity/health regen isn't a problem in late game, and that's why Wicker and Wolfgang are the strongest character in late game despite having issues with hunger/sanity regen - why cares when you have too many foods (jerkys and taffys) to eat?

That also applies to Maxwell's disadvantage as well. It's really easy to keep his health topped off and makes it less of an issue. I've also developed a habit of always keeping salve or poultice on him just in case.

1 hour ago, maxiaogua said:

I don't really understand why people thought 20/m sanity boost is overpowered - it's only overpowered for reading Wicker's books early or playing on pvp server, otherwise it's not a big deal considering everyone can get Bee Queen Crown in late game which makes sanity management totally a joke.

It's not about sanity management as a whole, but sanity management mid-fight. 20/min sanity regen negates almost all of the disadvantages of the best armor and weapon in the game. He could sustain himself using a dark sword and night armor for a very long time mid-fight.

1 hour ago, maxiaogua said:

Also we're talking about the ideal situation - in any server that has 80+ ping, Wigfrid becomes the top-tier and Maxwell becomes the trash-tier. There's always less than 5 servers with 50- ping for me (I believe that's also true for anyone who don't live in East Europe or U.S) and that's why everyone loves playing Wigfrid in DST and no one loves playing Maxwell. The lagging is killing you.

Such a sad, sad truth. That's usually why I play alone or occasionally with a few friends. It's unfortunate that you have so few options available.

1 hour ago, maxiaogua said:

Playing alone? How can Maxwell solo Bee Queen/Toadstool without using any glitches?

Well, I'd imagine it would be the same way as any other character, but better. If someone can solo them using Wilson, then I don't see why Maxwell would be unable to. Heck, I bet some skilled individuals could even solo these guys using Wes. It certainly wouldn't be as easy as WX, Wolfgang, Wigfrid and maybe Wicker, but it's not impossible as another character (including Maxwell of course).

1 hour ago, maxiaogua said:

But speaking of combat, it's not all about kiting, it's also about room for mistakes. I know how to kite all the mobs and seasonal bosses, but mistake DO happens. That's why I actually thought the armor mechanics change is what influences Maxwell the most (even than the sanity nerf), it just makes very little room for mistakes.

The top hat and night armor combo helps. You still can't make too many mistakes without making things worse, but it still gives some breathing room. Even more when you have some healing on hand too.

1 hour ago, maxiaogua said:

Also you can't kite new raid bosses or a bunch of shadow monkeys plus terrorbeaks during the nightmare cycle, you dead if you made just one simple mistake or lagged for just 1 sec.

That would be true for pretty much any character except maybe WX and Wigfrid.

1 hour ago, maxiaogua said:

Maxwell can't survive ruins like he used to be and it just becomes too tedious for him to live underground.

I actually spend almost all my time in summer and autumn (except the first one and sometimes second) in the caves. Usually near the ruins too if I can find it early on. I have very little issues with living in the caves for extended periods of time, even with my frequent trips into the ruins. I personally find living in the caves as Wolfgang or Wickerbottom to be much more tedious due to their cons.

[Maslak]

10 hours ago, Destros09 said:

Moleworms and rabbits

(so basically nothing)

What? Do they really dig up rabbit holes and burrows? D:

[56933043043]

15 minutes ago, Maslak said:

What? Do they really dig up rabbit holes and burrows? D:

Nope. I think graves and stumps are all they can dig up.

 

[Maslak]

@Destros09 Checkmate m8.
 

[Destros09]

Thought they did