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Rebalances for Willow and Wolfgang


Do these characters need reworks?  

64 members have voted

  1. 1. Wolfgang

    • He's fine as is.
      26
    • He should be changed in the way detailed in the post.
      26
    • He should be changed another way.
      12
  2. 2. Willow

    • She's fine as is.
      18
    • She should be changed in the way detailed in the post.
      27
    • She should be changed another way.
      19
  3. 3. Do these other characters need a look, too? (if so, explain why)

    • Wilson
      4
    • Wendy
      4
    • Wickerbottom
      2
    • Wes
      6
    • Maxwell
      4
    • Webber
      5
    • Wigfrid
      8
    • No, they're all fine.
      39
    • I don't know.
      6


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I made a sample mod to demonstrate these changes, but I'd really rather see this in the official game: CharacterRebalance.zip

 

Really short version (sorry, it's less tactful in favor of brevity):

Willow sucks in Together, I hate her, and I've modified the game so that players can't join as Willow on my servers. I think some other people feel similarly, but maybe not as strongly. She should get cold when she's insane instead of lighting fires, because that punishes her, not other players directly.

 

Wolfgang sucks period, and is worse in Together because fighting is hard and food is more valuable. He is the least popular character. His scaling makes playing him awkward, and the optimal strategy is to say Wimpy most of the time, which feels crappy. He should have flat power levels, not scaling, and his hunger drain should be constant.

 

Longer version:

I think that Willow's downside (lighting fires on low sanity) made sense in single-player, but in multiplayer it's incredibly frustrating, because although you may be able to manage sanity as Willow, other players might be bad at it, and it only takes one poor play to burn down your entire sapling patch or berry farm. I would like to see her changed to have a more personal downside, so I'm proposing that she get cold when her sanity is low, instead of lighting fires. This would rationalize the roleplay of lighting fires when she's crazy, because she wants the warmth. It would also give players the option to mitigate the warmth of RoG summer by keeping sanity low, without giving her overpowered universal immunity to overheating.

 

The way I implemented this is to have her temperature component consider the ambient temperature to be lower based on sanity. If her sanity is 60 or above, it treats temperature normally. As her sanity gets lower, the ambient temperature gets a scaling amount subtracted from it, starting at zero at 60 sanity, and hitting a cap at 30 at the insane -> sane threshold (which is 21 for Willow). So if her sanity is 21 or lower, she changes temperature as if the world were 30 cooler (in summer, this would typically mean around 0 during the day, and around -5 at night). The ambient temperature reduction is capped at considering it to be -35 -- normally winter gets down to about -20, so if she was fully insane it would've considered it to be -50, which is too much.

 

@Toros has already started a discussion on a potential Wolfgang rework, and although it got a little sidetracked by discussion of the multiplayer damage nerfs, it seemed like there was support for reworking Wolfgang. Based on J20hawkz poll, Wolfgang is the least favorite character for Together, behind even Wes.

 

Basically the problem with Wolfgang is that it feels really awkward to play him. Strategically, you want to stay Wimpy as much as possible to save food, and only become Mighty to fight things. But lore-wise, he's a strongman, he should want to be mighty all the time! So Toros proposed changing his hunger drain to a flat 2x at all stages, instead of 1x -> 1.5x -> 3x.

 

Another problem with Wolfgang is that his health and damage scale gradually with his hunger in Wimpy and Mighty forms. This is neat from a game-implementation perspective, but from a gameplay perspective it's just really frustrating. It makes it much harder to predict how many hits it will take to kill an enemy, since your damage is changing throughout the fight, and makes it feel like it's punishing you for being Mighty as soon as you become Mighty, because immediately your health and damage start draining. It would be much nicer to play Wolfgang if he were more reliable, such as by making his health and damage static within each form. Toros proposed damage of 0.75x -> 1.25x -> 1.75x instead of the current (0.5x-0.75x) -> 1x -> (1.25x-2x). This means that in normal form, his damage output is like Wigfrid's, but while Wimpy it's like Wendy's, and while Mighty it's strong, but not quite as good as his peak Mighty form before. Similarly, health would be rebalanced as 150 -> 225 -> 300 instead of (150-200) -> 200 -> (200-300). This means that Wimpy form can be more easily and reliably used to heal, and his normal form still has less effective health than Wigfrid (she has 200 health and intrinsic 25% armor, so that's about 267 effective health), but his Mighty form has a bit more than she does.

 

Edit: Another discussion that covered Willow and Wolfgang.

Edit: Oops, I meant to add a poll so we can get some aggregate feedback on this, too.

 

Edit: There's some discussion lower down about adjustments to Willow. There were several good points about the simple subtract-from-ambient-temperature not getting good behavior, so I'm looking at reducing the amount it can subtract from the temperature (to prevent it from being too strong in RoG summer) and increasing the freezing point (to keep freezing a threat in Spring/Autumn).

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This is pretty awesome work!

 

I've tested Wolfgang for a couple years, and his "feel" is greatly improved this way.

 

The beauty of your Willow changes are multiple.

 

1) She no longer can accidentally ruin bases.

 

2) She has a logical penalty that encourages players to start fires, just controlled ones, as she goes crazy.

 

3) Once RoG content is added, a clever player can use the low sanity = colder mechanic to improve the time she can spend away from an endothermic fire during the summer.

 

Rezecib, the modder DST needs.

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The only character off the top of my head I can think of an improvement for is Wigfrid. Her current perk in DST is to provide outright better weapons and armor for her team, turning everyone into Wigfrid lookalikes. While I think this perk is "fine" I feel it makes her lose some of her identity as the heroic viking warrior she is, and isn't very interesting gameplay wise. The helmet and spear should be considered character specific items.

 

Instead, I propose that her perk center around teamwork and cooperation. As a great warrior, and leader, she should provide a steadfast aura to those around her, giving them improved offense and defense capabilities. This actively encourages a positive playstyle that enhances fun. Compare this to sitting in base mass crafting her special gear for the team, while effective, it's not as fun.

 

I think it is worth brainstorming along this train of thought for other characters as well. A lot of them include very individualized perks, and while this works just fine it would be nice to more actively encourage teamwork and cooperation.

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The only character off the top of my head I can think of an improvement for is Wigfrid. Her current perk in DST is to provide outright better weapons and armor for her team, turning everyone into Wigfrid lookalikes. While I think this perk is "fine" I feel it makes her lose some of her identity as the heroic viking warrior she is, and isn't very interesting gameplay wise. The helmet and spear should be considered character specific items.

 

Instead, I propose that her perk center around teamwork and cooperation. As a great warrior, and leader, she should provide a steadfast aura to those around her, giving them improved offense and defense capabilities. This actively encourages a positive playstyle that enhances fun. Compare this to sitting in base mass crafting her special gear for the team, while effective, it's not as fun.

 

I think it is worth brainstorming along this train of thought for other characters as well. A lot of them include very individualized perks, and while this works just fine it would be nice to more actively encourage teamwork and cooperation.

 

Well, Wigfrid is actually a method actress, not a trained warrior.

 

In a way, being able to produce cheaper armor and a superior spear (helmet is only as good as football helm) does improve the offensive and defensive abilities of her teammates, making her by default an excellent teammate.

 

Given her viking theme, I think an attack speed aura would be most fitting, as vikings were known for their berserkers.

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Rezecib, you have created yet another genius solution!

 

Also, I do want to explain why I think Wilson should be reworked a bit and make a little suggestion...

Wilson is the simplest and most basic character, obviously because he's the starting character. He does well in single-player because he does not have downsides and his perk is perfect for surviving alone.

However, in a multiplayer game, Wilson would become the guy who's only useful every 16 days then becomes a waste of a player slot until then. While Wilson is growing a beard, another player could have been in his place building a base with Wickerbottom, or doing sanity-costly tasks as Maxwell, or disposing of mobs as Wolfgang.

After Wilson grows his beard to max length, he has a choice of either being selfish and using it for insulation or shaving it to create two Meat Effigies. But, then again, food is more important in DST. Their team's Wolfgang could have used those meat to cook some Meaty Stews for fighting. Also, Beard Hair can easily be obtained by collecting a lot of Rabbits then eating some Green Caps, which will also yield some Nightmare Fuel for Maxwell to use and Monster Meat for Wolfgang to cook in a Crock Pot. Plus, Meat Effigies would require a chunk of health from Wilson, further reducing his usefulness.

He's too simple and does not fill any gaps like most of the other characters, he needs some kind of role.

I'm thinking of something like making him the group's main source of resurrection, sooo...:

- Beardlings no longer drop/give Beard Hair when killed/murdered.

- Beardlords drop Nightmare Fuel instead of Beard Hair when killed.

- Wilson's Beard grows faster.

- 3 days = Short

- 6 days = Long

- 9 days = Magnificent

- Meat Effigies can only be crafted by Wilson.

 

Or maybe I'm wrong and just don't see how.

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@Warpspeed10 @Toros While I like the idea, auras are expensive to the server, which has enough on its plate at the moment. But lore-wise, aren't actors/actresses supposed to inspire? In terms of gameplay, though, I think Wigfrid will be in a good place. Maybe too good of a place... It would require that other characters get bumped up or her down, when she gets added. Personally I prefer the buff approach.

 

@J192 I don't think there's that much wrong with your suggestion, but I don't feel like it's needed, either. Willow and Wolfgang really need something done to their current state. Wilson is still in a good place of being a very well-rounded character with no real downsides. My main objection is to making him the main source of resurrection, I don't think you should feel compelled to have a particular character on every team (which will be a problem with Wigfrid, too, I suppose).

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I love it all! As for my personal choice on which other character should be looked at, it's Wigfrid. My reason for choosing her is her special helmet and spear, which are cheap and powerful. I, like many others, wish to see them as character-specific items. Perhaps having any character besides Wigfrid have only an examine text for them? Maybe the helmet only fits Wigfrid's head perfectly and perhaps the spear is more complicated then it looks?

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Spring rain in RoG can be deadly if feel-cold-if-insane. Raining induces sanity loss and increases wetness; wetness can result in sanity loss and cold damage. Spring essentially becomes a second winter.

 

They should really consider making characters' special items character-bound. Otherwise, Maxwell can play with Wex's balloon maker all day and make tons of free balloons ... it's more than a balance issue, that's just not right, and not characteristic.

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Spring rain in RoG can be deadly if feel-cold-if-insane. Raining induces sanity loss and increases wetness; wetness can result in sanity loss and cold damage. Spring essentially becomes a second winter.

They should really consider making characters' special items character-bound. Otherwise, Maxwell can play with Wex's balloon maker all day and make tons of free balloons ... it's more than a balance issue, that's just not right, and not characteristic.

Well, rain protective gear isn't difficult to get, and for willow, fires restore both warmth and sanity. So while an unprepared willow might have a little more trouble, it won't be an issue for a prepared one.

Certainly less difficult to deal with than burning down your base with a random fire.

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Everything you said was logical and explained really well... And because of that I totally agree. Even if I were on the fence at the start of this you would have convinced me. BUT I'm also with J192 feeling that wilson needs a kick in the pants... After a while he just feels boring... 

 

Personally I also think wickerbottom needs maybe another book or two... since I really only see one maybe two as useful... Maybe an animal husbandry book to increase the size of a beefalo herd? I'm trying to think of some not overpowered things she could do and I'm having a bit of trouble.. OH maybe a book to burn that lasts a pretty long time, this could be kinda funny because burning books is a thing IRL and the book could be called "Stoking the Fire, an idiot's guide to efficient fire burning" she could then throw it in and say "Why bother reading it?" Oh man I crack myself.

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Well, rain protective gear isn't difficult to get, and for willow, fires restore both warmth and sanity. So while an unprepared willow might have a little more trouble, it won't be an issue for a prepared one.

Certainly less difficult to deal with than burning down your base with a random fire.

 

You are right. I thought  the idea of binding coldness to sanity is somehow balanced, but no, this mechanism obvious makes Willow a straight upgrade, given the immunity to fire, immunity to summer heat (planned), infinite heat, infinite light, and easy sanity gain from fire. The only downside is a lower sanity cap, which is not difficult to manage for veteran players.

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Everything you said was logical and explained really well... And because of that I totally agree. Even if I were on the fence at the start of this you would have convinced me. BUT I'm also with J192 feeling that wilson needs a kick in the pants... After a while he just feels boring... 

 

Personally I also think wickerbottom needs maybe another book or two... since I really only see one maybe two as useful... Maybe an animal husbandry book to increase the size of a beefalo herd? I'm trying to think of some not overpowered things she could do and I'm having a bit of trouble.. OH maybe a book to burn that lasts a pretty long time, this could be kinda funny because burning books is a thing IRL and the book could be called "Stoking the Fire, an idiot's guide to efficient fire burning" she could then throw it in and say "Why bother reading it?" Oh man I crack myself.

 

Wickerbottom's books are already pretty amazing.  Applied horticulture can rapidly produce tons of food, on tentacles create great base defenses and infinite tentacle spikes, birds of the world and lureplants can give you stacks of morsels.

 

You are right. I thought  the idea of binding coldness to sanity is somehow balanced, but no, this mechanism obvious makes Willow a straight upgrade, given the immunity to fire, immunity to summer heat (planned), infinite heat, infinite light, and easy sanity gain from fire. The only downside is a lower sanity cap, which is not difficult to manage for veteran players.

 

Willow in her current state is not difficult to manage for veteran players.  None of the characters have downsides that are difficult to manage.

 

Willow's bonuses, however, are not valuable to veteran players (who don't have problems with dark, and don't need fire immunity to take down the firefly), and her random fire starting can easily ruin a base.

 

When everything goes well, her downsides don't show up (just like wickerbottom).  It's if things start to go badly that compounding problems start to occur.  Compounding problems are what often lead to player deaths.

 

 

Right now, veteran players don't play willow, because one mistake can cost you dearly, and her bonuses cover areas they don't have trouble with.

 

This gives some deeper play, and multiplayer-friendly downsides.

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Toros after I actually messed around with her in some creative testing... Yeah I didn't realise how useful ALL her books are... I still find my campfire book humorous though. The lightning book seems to make WX supercharged for a LONGGG time.

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I don't like any of the ideas. In real life mussel men need lots of food to maintain their muscle mass. They would realistically be a drain on any small troop that they are in. In small bands of hunter gatherer groups (of which we evolved from and into) most individuals are relativity weak and small by todays “standards” of strength. Our modern standards of size and the fact that most people are also becoming overweight is a direct outgrowth of the ease of access to food. Wolfgang models this dynamic very well. This is also why humans on average are wimpy. We sacrificed our size for number of people and intelligence. Our ability to outproduce individuals, and out think our much stronger Neanderthal competitors is why we became the dominant species on the planet. The attempt to turn this realistic observation, that is inherently the defining characteristic of Wolfgang, on its head is insulting to reality. The game play dynamics make sense in multiplayer.

 

The simple fact is that if you are going to harbor individuals with larger dietary requirements or individuals with mental illnesses (pyro) your group will have to account for this in its strategy. What you are advocating for is no disadvantages you need to strategically work around for your group.

 

I can understand maybe making a slight tweak but not to the degree you are talking about.

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@MoistTarp Games are not reality. Many important advances in making games more fun has been in divorcing them further from reality. For example, spoiled food in the game doesn't make you sick. Mushrooms cannot kill you. All the player characters (except Webber and WX-78) have unnatural dead-and-drained-of-blood pasty white skin. Pigs can talk. Turkeys have bush-warp-points. Lightning is just as likely to strike players as trees. I mean, the player's heads are half of their body. Player characters typically roam and function perfectly for days on end without sleep. None of these things are anywhere close to reality.

 

The problem with Wolfgang is that he isn't fun. He is objectively the least fun character in the game, because so few people actually want to play him-- even fewer than Wes, who was intentionally designed to be a niche character. This change to him doesn't even change that he uses way more food-- if anything, it makes him use more overall, he eats for two characters at all times. But rather than punishing him for being Mighty, it punishes him for being Wimpy.

 

As for Willow, there's no way for you to opt out of having a pyro in your group, so it doesn't make sense for her to have such gross far-reaching drawbacks when no other characters have anything remotely similar. Let's do a comparison:

 

Drawbacks:

  • Wilson doesn't have one, because he's simple. I guess you could say he loses his beard on death (strictly personal), but others don't have one to begin with, so whatever.
  • Willow burns things down when she's low on sanity. This impacts everyone hugely, and disproportionately more with larger shared bases.
  • Wolfgang has to eat more food to survive. This is strictly personal, because if it fails, it kills him and nobody else.
  • Wendy does less damage. This is strictly personal.
  • WX-78 takes damage in rain. This is strictly personal.
  • Wickerbottom can't sleep, and hates spoiled food. These are strictly personal.
  • Woodie turns into a werebeaver when chopping too much, leaving him weak afterwards. This is strictly personal.
  • Wes is just all-around weaker. This is strictly personal.
  • Maxwell has less health. This is strictly personal.
  • Wigfrid can only eat meat. This is strictly personal.
  • Webber gets attacked by pigs. This is strictly personal.

Does that make it clearer that Willow is disproportionate? If you want the group gameplay to change to support the weaknesses of each character, then they should all have wide-ranging weaknesses (e.g. Wicker prevents anyone from sleeping, any food WX touches has spoiled stats, Maxwell drains sanity from everyone else to give it to himself, etc), not just Willow. But it's easier to change the one character who does have a wide-ranging weakness than it is to add them for all other characters.

 

@TheKingofSquirrels Just because she's aligned with fire doesn't mean she's got a furnace in her belly. Maybe the fascination with fire got started because she often felt unusually cold, and thus drawn to fire? It also provides her with a real reason to light things on fire when she's crazy, not just "teehee". Sure, getting cold when you're insane doesn't make real-world sense, but nor does spontaneously pooping out fire.

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This is really interesting. I've joined a few servers already in the few short days I've had DST where entire forests are burned down. Really sucks when you're trying to make a base/armor sets for 4 or so players. One bad willow player can really mess up the map very quickly. 
 I'm not sure if that should be changed, though... maybe it is true that her downsides outweigh her good sides in multiplayer, but maybe it's supposed to be that difficult to play her. While saying that, though, your fix sounds actually kind of fun and unique. I wouldn't mind if it was switched to that at all.
Instead of ruining maps, she'd just be in trouble.
Fits in with how most of the other characters' downsides work. 

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-Snip-

 

First – one poll is not indicative to all the players of dont starve. It is not a representative sample, and in addition it has selection bias for people on this forum who like to do polls. Go to the dont starve wiki and you will see that many people like Wolfgang quite a bit. Don't toss that poll around like it is the end all be all, because it is not.  

Second - You need to keep a certain level or realism for most games to be fun. Further the best place to see drawbacks for particular attributes is reality. His drawback is needing food more than most, but this is quite an easy thing to keep up with in single player. With the addition of more players they can easily make more food and give it to him. The fact is that Wolfgang requires group support to maintain. Whats the problem with that? If you want a tank you have to pay for it. Tough bounce.

On Willow - you mean to tell me that the entire group cant keep her sane? She only lights fires when her sanity drops too low. Maybe you should help your team mates more. It is a good indicator of team cohesion when willow is able to operate at optimum. Also its not hard to keep her sane. Have her tend the fires for a while, preparing thermal stones and food for people and her sanity issue is gone. What is your problem with that?

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@MoistTarp I don't think you read the full Wolfgang rebalance. With this rebalance, he requires more food overall than he did before. He always drains at twice the rate, instead of draining at 1-3x the rate (which for any experienced player would usually be 1x most of the time, since they stay Wimpy).

 

Are you playing DST? It sounds like you're not. There are newbies. They exist. And it's often not possible to pamper their every need. Many times have I tuned into ClownBaby's stream to see a Willow just wandering around his base going crazy, asking "what should do?", despite his pile of tam o'shanters.

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@MoistTarp Games are not reality. Many important advances in making games more fun has been in divorcing them further from reality. For example, spoiled food in the game doesn't make you sick. Mushrooms cannot kill you. All the player characters (except Webber and WX-78) have unnatural dead-and-drained-of-blood pasty white skin. Pigs can talk. Turkeys have bush-warp-points. Lightning is just as likely to strike players as trees. I mean, the player's heads are half of their body. Player characters typically roam and function perfectly for days on end without sleep. None of these things are anywhere close to reality.

 

The problem with Wolfgang is that he isn't fun. He is objectively the least fun character in the game, because so few people actually want to play him-- even fewer than Wes, who was intentionally designed to be a niche character. This change to him doesn't even change that he uses way more food-- if anything, it makes him use more overall, he eats for two characters at all times. But rather than punishing him for being Mighty, it punishes him for being Wimpy.

 

As for Willow, there's no way for you to opt out of having a pyro in your group, so it doesn't make sense for her to have such gross far-reaching drawbacks when no other characters have anything remotely similar. Let's do a comparison:

 

Drawbacks:

  • Wilson doesn't have one, because he's simple. I guess you could say he loses his beard on death (strictly personal), but others don't have one to begin with, so whatever.
  • Willow burns things down when she's low on sanity. This impacts everyone hugely, and disproportionately more with larger shared bases.
  • Wolfgang has to eat more food to survive. This is strictly personal, because if it fails, it kills him and nobody else.
  • Wendy does less damage. This is strictly personal.
  • WX-78 takes damage in rain. This is strictly personal.
  • Wickerbottom can't sleep, and hates spoiled food. These are strictly personal.
  • Woodie turns into a werebeaver when chopping too much, leaving him weak afterwards. This is strictly personal.
  • Wes is just all-around weaker. This is strictly personal.
  • Maxwell has less health. This is strictly personal.
  • Wigfrid can only eat meat. This is strictly personal.
  • Webber gets attacked by pigs. This is strictly personal.

Does that make it clearer that Willow is disproportionate? If you want the group gameplay to change to support the weaknesses of each character, then they should all have wide-ranging weaknesses (e.g. Wicker prevents anyone from sleeping, any food WX touches has spoiled stats, Maxwell drains sanity from everyone else to give it to himself, etc), not just Willow. But it's easier to change the one character who does have a wide-ranging weakness than it is to add them for all other characters.

 

@TheKingofSquirrels Just because she's aligned with fire doesn't mean she's got a furnace in her belly. Maybe the fascination with fire got started because she often felt unusually cold, and thus drawn to fire? It also provides her with a real reason to light things on fire when she's crazy, not just "teehee". Sure, getting cold when you're insane doesn't make real-world sense, but nor does spontaneously pooping out fire.

 

She´s a pyromaniac. It has nothing to do with being cold, it´s an impulse control disorder that makes people want to burn or blow stuff up. That´s why she burns stuff when her sanity starts dropping, she starts loosing control. 

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