Will Wes stay bad forever?

[Serph]

Yea yea i know Wes is supposed to be awful but that fact alone makes character balance a joke. Others characters got nerfs such as:

Willow- Lighter is "too easy to grief" and fire is considered OP in pvp. They nerf her perks and give has 2 new early game crutches to make it "balanced".

Woodie- Werebeaver 2 strong, lets remove 90% of the things that made it good and make sanity drain so high it's more convenient to log out during a full moon.

Wigfrid- Sanity/Health on kill makes all other characters look trivial. Let's nerf it to a microscopic sanity/health drain on hit. 

Webber/Wendy- Indirecly nerfed by DST incapacity to order followers to attack. If this was to prevent Webber from starting spider wars then it failed, it's only slightly harder now. Wendy becomes riskier to use because you have to go there attack or else Abigail won't target anything.

All these balance changes and still no reason to pick Wes over any of these characters. I'm not complaining about Wes sucking or Klei debatable balance choices, i'm complaining about how everyone is always ready to talk about balance and yet we have an character nobody cares because he is intentionally underpowered.

Any thoughts?

[Battal]

8 minutes ago, Serph said:

he is intentionally underpowered.

 

Wes isn't meant for practical use.  He's for people who find the game to be too easy and want an extra challenge.

[Serph]

2 minutes ago, Lord_Battal said:

 

Wes isn't meant for practical use.  He's for people who find the game to be too easy and want an extra challenge.

That argument goes both ways.

Wigfrid isn't meant for practical use. She's for people who find the game to be too hard and want an easy experience.

She was nerfed for balance reasons.

[Battal]

That's true.  But what's your point?

[Serph]

2 minutes ago, Lord_Battal said:

That's true.  But what's your point?

I already said my point.

Klei nerfed other characters because "balance" and doesn't change Wes. If we can have an intentionally underpowered character, why can't we have overpowered characters again? I'm not asking to buff Wes, but any balance change is questionable at best as long as he stays like this.

[Battal]

I'm...still really not getting your point.  Because we have underpowered characters, therefore we should have overpowered characters?  That's like saying because I have a bag of apples in the fridge, we should start a nuclear holocaust.  Those two things are completely unrelated.

Think about it.  If there's one character that's vastly better than the others, why would anyone use anyone else?  They'd just go with the OP char and ignore everything else.  It's the problem you have with Wes, but with every character instead of just one.  I don't get what that fixes.

[MenaAthena]

58 minutes ago, Serph said:

Will Wes stay bad forever?

Yes.

[Serph]

I never said "therefore", i said "why not?". Both arguments can also be used against it.

Because we have balanced characters, therefore we should have underpowered ones? Think about it. If there's one character that's vastly worse than the others, why would anyone use him at all? They'd just go with the balanced char and ignore the underpowered. (Oh wait, most players already ignore Wes...)

If you say "because some people want challenge" then i will just reply "other people don't want challenge".

I already said in another thread i have no problem with him as long as the player knows what to do, Wes is the least picked character in the game so his awfulness has almost no impact. This topic is more of a curious question to klei.

[Battal]

If other people don't want challenge, then they won't use Wes.  That's all I have to say on that.

[JoeW]

So I don't have a direct answer to this, but I think something is important to notice. I am speaking personally here as I don't know where we all stand in terms of balance right now. 

DS characters were never intended to be balanced as equals. Wes was fully intended to be kind of a hard mode character. He is at a disadvantage and that's pretty much all there is to it. 

I know, for a fact that if we were to "balance" Wes in a way that made him "equal" to everybody else; a lot of people would be upset by such a change. Any changes to balance up to this point have been to adjust a perceived problem. In general in terms of balance, characters were made for an interesting experience, not so much to be equal.

As somebody who has worked in MMOs almost exclusively before coming to Klei, I really think this is something interesting that I would like to explore more as we grow DST in the future. I don't know how I feel about making everybody balanced to be equal; I don't know that that's really in the spirit of the game. So, then how do we "balance" in interesting ways?

Obviously this is weird in an online game, right? I mean, up till now as players we have always thought of balance as meaning equal, where that is not the case in Don't Starve. But does it have to be equal? Can we help players choose know that they should pick Wes for the challenge? Is it something we need to change, or is it something we need to encourage?

We do have plans for some pvp oriented changes to the game in the future, so I am very interested in knowing more about how others feel about this. Again, this is all me here, I am sure other devs have different opinions here; but we would love your thoughts. 

[MycoLogical]

4 minutes ago, JoeW said:

So I don't have a direct answer to this, but I think something is important to notice. I am speaking personally here as I don't know where we all stand in terms of balance right now. 

DS characters were never intended to be balanced as equals. Wes was fully intended to be kind of a hard mode character. He is at a disadvantage and that's pretty much all there is to it. 

I know, for a fact that if we were to "balance" Wes in a way that made him "equal" to everybody else; a lot of people would be upset by such a change. Any changes to balance up to this point have been to adjust a perceived problem. In general in terms of balance, characters were made for an interesting experience, not so much to be equal.

As somebody who has worked in MMOs almost exclusively before coming to Klei, I really think this is something interesting that I would like to explore more as we grow DST in the future. I don't know how I feel about making everybody balanced to be equal; I don't know that that's really in the spirit of the game. So, then how do we "balance" in interesting ways?

Obviously this is weird in an online game, right? I mean, up till now as players we have always thought of balance as meaning equal, where that is not the case in Don't Starve. But does it have to be equal? Can we help players choose know that they should pick Wes for the challenge? Is it something we need to change, or is it something we need to encourage?

We do have plans for some pvp oriented changes to the game in the future, so I am very interested in knowing more about how others feel about this. Again, this is all me here, I am sure other devs have different opinions here; but we would love your thoughts. 

Well I don't know about Wes, but I think that Wilson should have access to Tier 1 Magic items from the get go; his character suggests that he has some familiarity with the occult.

 

Think of his as the male Wickerbottom; she doesn't need a Science Machine; he doesn't need a Prestihatinator (or however you spell that....)

[Serph]

6 minutes ago, JoeW said:

stuff 

I see, thank you for answering so fast JoeW.

I think Wes is perfectly fine in singleplayer but in DST you have people depending on you or you're directly competing with others, so i don't know how a "challenge yourself character" should be treated. That's for all the others too, they're great experiences in single player but very hard to give them the same feeling when competing with or helping others.

Some characters are better than other simply for their concept, i don't think DST will ever be fully balanced but i hope every character is fun to play, decent enough to at least compete with others and/or a unique power useful to the team. I would say the most interesting characters are Wickerbottom and Wigfrid  because they give an amazing support with early items/books and easy spears/helmets.

I will wait to see what changes Klei brings us. Again, thanks for answering.
 

[Arcita]

42 minutes ago, JoeW said:

Obviously this is weird in an online game, right? I mean, up till now as players we have always thought of balance as meaning equal, where that is not the case in Don't Starve. But does it have to be equal? Can we help players choose know that they should pick Wes for the challenge? Is it something we need to change, or is it something we need to encourage?

We do have plans for some pvp oriented changes to the game in the future, so I am very interested in knowing more about how others feel about this. Again, this is all me here, I am sure other devs have different opinions here; but we would love your thoughts. 

I think that complementary imbalance is important to make interesting dynamics between characters. For example, in solo competitive play, Wig has an advantage over Gang early game, but this advantage erodes and is eventually flipped as time goes by. This is good because it makes for tense and interesting gameplay throughout the game, whereas if they were both equal right out the gate, then in the case of Wig it'd just be a slap fight that's over in a minute (or an endless chase), or for Gang they'd both run off to gather resources. 

Another interesting example is that of Wicker and WX because she can overcharge WX with her End is Nigh book; WX is a wimp without Wicker, but when he's overcharged he becomes a god. Wicker is another who's extremely powerful late game, but vulnerable early on, so in competitive play she teams well with a strong starter character like Wig. 

I think we need more of the above. More unique power, but give specific characters the ability to counter these powers so that no one character is almighty. The characters currently most in need of powers are Willow, Webber, Wilson, Wendy. 

With the exclusion of Wes obviously. Wes' entire point is that he's the hardmode character. Though, if you want to make him more interesting, then I think his balloons have some potential. Maybe add something to his balloons where you can chain them together in some way to create traps. Maybe you can select different types of balloons, and the different types have different effects on other balloons and/or the environment. This would be amazing for innovation, creativity, longevity of the game, and it'd also give non-experienced people a reason to play Wes even though he sucks as a character. 

Oh and I'm sure you've seen this, but in case not I'll leave it here for ya:

 

[Serph]

27 minutes ago, MycoLogical said:

Well I don't know about Wes, but I think that Wilson should have access to Tier 1 Magic items from the get go; his character suggests that he has some familiarity with the occult.

 

Think of his as the male Wickerbottom; she doesn't need a Science Machine; he doesn't need a Prestihatinator (or however you spell that....)

He should change his title to Gentleman Wizard then 

You need gems and nightmare to do almost any magical thing and by the time you get those someone should probably have a prest ready, i don't see that helping him much, (aside from Meat Effigies obviously).

I wish Wilson had Wicker's science knowledge, it would make more sense on him and she's already good enough with books.

[Snowhusky5]

Because nobody has said it yet, I will. The Wigfrid change from hp/sanity on kill to on hit was because more than one player can fight the same enemy, so 'last hitting' wouldn't become something annoying. Plus, iirc you get the same amount of hp and sanity as in singleplayer from killing things if its only you killing them. Also, because mobs (besides Wendy) can't travel through wormholes, that is another accidental nerf of Webber since you can't take underground spiders to the surface (but other characters can't take rock lobsters, so does it even out?)

[nome]

1 hour ago, Snowhusky5 said:

Plus, iirc you get the same amount of hp and sanity as in singleplayer from killing things if its only you killing them

That was my recollection as well - that it wasn't a nerf at all and that Bryce had very carefully kept it exactly the same overall while adding the multiplayer change of on-hit - but I didn't want to once again be corrected by all you guys who know the game better than me.  

[PillsStealer]

I personally don't want Wes to be "re balanced" I find Wes to be an interesting character to use. He's kinda like a hard mode for the game. Other characters got changed because of multiplayer, notice how the changes didn't carry over to the original Don't Starve. Wes is a unique character due to the advance difficulty in order to use him, reason why I like him! 

[RalphKastro]

5 hours ago, Lord_Battal said:

That's like saying because I have a bag of apples in the fridge, we should start a nuclear holocaust.  Those two things are completely unrelated.

or are they?

http://vignette4.wikia.nocookie.net/logopedia/images/d/d6/History_Channel_2015_logo.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20150531212611

[The Letter W]

wes was too powerful and needed to be stopped. 

in all seriousness though, i don't think he needs to be changed? his suckiness IMO isn't detrimental to team play, just (to) the person playing him. you'll either be playing co-op (so you'll probably be inclined to help each other), lone wolf (if you're having a hard time, well that's your fault you picked wes and you're choosing to play alone), or pvp (show them your moves), and just like the other characters he's another playstyle. it just so happens that wes's playstyle requires a more attentive player. 

[Zeklo]

That's an interesting Westion.

[Poniwo2]

The easy solution to this problem would be to not play as him. Just play as Wilson or Wolfgang for the same effect. If you really really want mime dancing and balloons then you should just learn how to play as him. Simple as that.

[Ivanc25]

7 hours ago, MycoLogical said:

but I think that Wilson should have access to Tier 1 Magic items from the get go

Wilson is a scientist, he's not a wizard.

1 hour ago, Zeklo said:

That's an interesting Westion.

That was a bad joke.

[oCrapaCreeper]

7 hours ago, MycoLogical said:

Well I don't know about Wes, but I think that Wilson should have access to Tier 1 Magic items from the get go; his character suggests that he has some familiarity with the occult.

I think that would make more sense as a Maxwell perk, not Wilson. He was an actual magician, afterall.

Of course, it seems like Klei is taking their sweet time freeing him from the Nightmare Throne, so it's still up in the air as to what will happen to Maxwell balance wise.

[cryssztal]

1 minute ago, oCrapaCreeper said:

I think that would make more sense as a Maxwell perk, not Wilson. He was a magician afterall.

Of course, Maxwell would actually need to be added to the game first.

Was just about to post this.  I think this perk would fit well with Maxwell in DST instead of his strong starting items (perhaps just giving him some nightmare fuel).

[GiddyGuy]

2 hours ago, cryssztal said:

Was just about to post this.  I think this perk would fit well with Maxwell in DST instead of his strong starting items (perhaps just giving him some nightmare fuel).

I would like to say that this seems stupid but I guess it wouldn't be too bad, because Wigfrid needs her starting items to get food quickly and without dying, Maxwell doesn't really need the shadow gear for anything other than killing things, but I guess they could give him nightmare fuel and living logs(since it takes a little bit of time to find some) for his dark sword and armor.