Wagstaff strikes me as the kind of fellow to invent something great, like maybe smart refrigerators. Definitely smart refrigerators.
Hello guys, just an update on the DS/T Discord, which is currently at 5200 members and growing at unprecedented rates! Everyone is welcome to join, the invite is https://discord.gg/dontstarve We're not official however we are the Wikia and Subreddit's Discord, and we have actual developers on the server. With the new DS and DST updates there's much to discuss on theorize about on the server, and it's a great way to find other players to learn with! Everyone is welcome to join.
I'd just like to make a point that I made on a previous post about one issue I hope Klei considers. With the current ease of switching characters at the relatively cheap cost it would be concerning if Klei dumped a lot of Willow's rework into Bernie, and to a lesser extent the lighter. Either the rework for Bernie/Lighter likely wouldn't be enough to make a difference or it'd make Willow a potential "swap" character, a term I coined for characters used solely for their items/structures and not actually played (think of Winona farms for example). I haven't seen much issue with that in this thread, most suggestions are for actual mechanics for Willow (which are significantly better than item buffs), just something to consider is all. Also as a disclaimer I'm not suggesting Klei shouldn't rework Bernie or the Lighter, in fact I'd be fine with it, just that the primary focus of the rework is on making Willow a more fun character mechanically.
While it's not Don't Starve Together, and I did end up surviving (how I have no idea) it is a story from Don't Starve Shipwrecked. At one point in the game I had to deal with: sharks, sea hounds, meteorites, dragoons, darkness, overheating, waves, low boat hp (had to stop and repair almost getting me killed) and one especially belligerent swordfish all within the span of about a quarter of a day. Yeah I still don't know how I managed to live through that but it was insanely poor timing/luck.
This is completely over-blowing how it actually ends up playing out. The point actually references the issues it has, that it requires a significant amount of resources and time to maintain optimally (which is extremely rare in actual gameplay until the endgame). Stating that it's unfair because you can have a Maxwell or alternative source of fuel is like suggesting characters shouldn't have synergies with one another, in that case Wicker's books shouldn't charge WX players or her food keep Wolfgangs eternally mighty. Also as Willow if you're focusing on inventory burning and combat you're not really capable of exploring, traveling, or gathering, as you'll end up destroying precious resources along the way. So it locks you into a singular area for a significant chunk of time, costs a lot of fuel, and removes a basic function of the character, which is access to their inventory to use optimally. People who've watched the video but never actually tried it in a playthrough assume that's how inventory burning actually plays out in normal gameplay. I can assure you it's never like that in reality. A more realistic approach to it is the utilization of 2-5ish inventory slots set aside for burning rope in when needed, which provides a comfortable boost in DPS but doesn't require dropping and/or consuming my entire inventory and locking me to trying to find a spot where I won't burn anything. Also that takes time, so unless I walk around completely prepared for, say hounds, I'm probably not going to have the time to get properly set up and deal with them effectively, as least not in a way that doesn't risk burning my stuff. Logs are an inefficient fuel source based on cost/time to begin with, even if converted to boards, which end up getting you stuck standing in one place for a good period of time. Also the mechanic of lighting stuff on fire in your inventory was completely intentional, otherwise coconades wouldn't be functional. The side effect of this, inventory burning, while not directly intentional was considered an interesting addition after the fact. Honestly I'm kinda unhappy with the judgmental tone of this. Of course I understand the importance of good DPS, why do you think I'm suggesting inventory burning to begin with? I know how important combat is, it governs a significant portion of the gameplay. And also to the second part of this, it's not my job to answer a hypothetical about what some "pros" may whine about. Why should I care what a bunch of "pro meta" players think or if they get upset that their fragile meta gets changed? Nor am I suggesting this is a "perfect vision" of Willow, that's ridiculous. I said this mechanic is a good foundation for Klei to consider building off of. And finally all of this is still ignoring the fact I stated I'd be fine with Klei working on it for a more multiplayer friendly setting! All of the critiques I've heard of it are assuming Klei just slaps it straight into the game without another thought (which I don't like), and I seriously doubt they'd do that to begin with.
I mean it's undeniable it makes her interesting and fun in DS, it's a solid perk that benefits all skill levels of players and effects all levels of gameplay (which is how I'd describe a good perk). And it's not the same thing as Wolfgang, there's more to it than just holding f at the right times. It's AoE foremost, giving it unique strategies against enemies with addons (like bee queen), as well as being heavily resource consuming if you wish to utilize it consistently for actually decent dps. Also in DST enemies have much higher hp counts making combat perks all the more salient, and a stack of logs wouldn't be nearly enough to kill a deerclops in the same fashion the video does. This is also why I specify in my original post the perk could be altered to be more fitting for a multiplayer experience.... which someone else has already missed as well... This isn't some sort of conspiracy lol. They reworked how fire mechanics works in DST which removed it (ironically unintentionally). Believe it or not I'm not some "grand mastermind" trying to get the perk in, I'm just making a suggestion from ~1700 hours of playing Willow that allows me to have seen what works and what doesn't.
And that's why I said it "Could be altered to from it's original DS incarnation to be more balanced and fitting for multiplayer," To your first point, yes it is cheesy, however so is the entirety of Wickerbottom and Wolfgang's characters as well as overcharge in WX. In actual practice you're rarely going to have a situation where you have a completed boards inventory, a krampus sack, a dark sword, and a thule crown until mid-late game when those strategies (along with other character strats) actually are viable. The vast majority of actual use for it is just as a moderate dps boost, with lighting a couple slots of rope on fire to give you an edge over the enemy. This actually encourages players to design arenas and prepare resources to fight bosses, instead of just playing Wolfgang and pressing f at the right times. Removing the AoE damage removes the entire point, no offense that's a bad idea. Making it just give a seasonal resistance and fire immunity just makes it an annoying fuel sink for summer which can be ignored entirely with proper seasonal equipment (Also Willow's already resistant to summer due to insanity cooling). And the fire immunity boost isn't good either, as being lit on fire or too close to a fire source is almost always completely avoidable with WASD. And the light aura is just a more costly lantern or miner's helmet. The damage boost to held weapons is meh, It'd make more sense if she just gained a damaging aura. To sum it up designing perks around a seasonal resistance and light perks is only going to matter to the most beginner of players, and we should consider broadening the scope to perks that benefit all skill levels of players (like combat focused). I feel like so many people love to critique inv burning who've never actually even tried it in the game before, it never plays out exactly how people assume it does. It (along with the required base fire immunity) makes Willow interesting and one of the best characters in DS (although obviously a tier list in a singleplayer game is questionable).
Fire Immunity and inventory Burning is a good place to start. Could be altered from its original DS incarnation to be more balanced and fitting for multiplayer, however at its core it's arguably Willow's best perk in DS. For those who don't know what it is enjoy: Beyond this I don't really have any major opinions, just that fire immunity + inventory burning gives her a unique combat style making her awesome for dps based fighting.
Having an alt account is a completely separate issue I think I saw maybe once or twice being utilized to get around character swapping before it was a thing, primarily because it required taking the effort to actually set up and oftentimes requires re-purchasing the game (most people give away the second copy before realizing they want an alt), then logging in with said account, all of which is a significant pain if you only have 1 computer. I'm sure it happened, but I think a majority of the time I saw alt accounts come up with issues it was for griefing servers. To answer your question it's both things that have issues, however the primary issue I'm addressing here is that characters have to be designed to be mechanically good, not just good in items, because being good in items is a buff to all characters due to the ability to just change and transfer said items. It makes characters essentially disposable tools when they have great items but lack that unique niche making them interesting and playable, similar to your second point in your referenced post. The main post point about longevity is what I'm trying to look for in the character refreshes, and what I'm alluding to is that since character swapping exists longevity must be acquired via: actual mechanics tied to the character themselves, actually character specific items, or some sort of nerf to character swapping. I already pointed out that I don't like nerfs in my initial post, and would be most likely a fan of the first option listed. I understand that to an extent it's subjective, some people don't really care about interesting characters so much as they care about making the game as fast and easy as possible, and that's fine, it's their opinion. However, I think most people can agree that characters and their items should matter at the end of the day, which isn't really the case when items can just be easily transferable and there's characters who are still fundamental upgrades to one another on a purely mechanical level.
My dude that couldn't have been said any better. While the purpose of this thread isn't to address the moon rock idol issue (at least not directly) the fact is it plays into why character items aren't necessarily character specific anymore in a big way. Which is why I think rebalances should focus less on character items and more on character mechanics (at least as a foundation). If you don't like it don't do it has always been a weak defense. If you don't like smoking, don't do it, doesn't mean you're not going to be impacted by smoking of others around you. At it's core there's a subjective interpretation of the importance of character choice here. Some people (myself included) think that characters should actually matter, and that the decisions you make in the game about who you play should have lasting consequences. When you make it so people can just switch whenever they feel like it removes that entire aspect of the game, which to me is something that's been lost. In certain genres I can respect that this mechanic would be more fitting, but it really does seem unnecessary in DST. Character swapping from what I've seen has actually only exacerbated the "meta" problem which plagues the community. People now play wickergang instead of just wicker or just wolfgang, and the meta has only gotten stronger as a result. While there's the potential for the character refreshes to change this, no one knows what the future holds after all, the point is that moonrock swapping, at least without some sort of control is not helping. Regardless the point still stands currently that Winona is a swap character, which is clearly not the intentional design of the game. Characters are made to be played, not used as tools for people to reinforce the meta. Honestly the only thing moonrock idols have done is take an already relatively easy game and make it even easier, which at least in my opinion is not a good thing. It's trivialized the risk of choice, and at the very least really should have at least some form of cooldown/nerf. I digress though, the point here is that because they exist character items either have to be actually character specific otherwise they risk becoming a swap character, or the reworks should focus on actual non-transferrable mechanics of each character (which would be better in my opinion anyways for Willow).
Yeah I point that out in the post, the purpose is more to just give the suggestion that buffing a character's items (unless truly specific like Lucy or the Codex Umbra) isn't necessarily a direct buff to the actual character themselves, and that this should be considered when they're reworking Willow.
So I've taken some time to enjoy the recent updates we've been getting with both the new character, Wortox, as well as Winona. However, there has been one thing that's been on my mind since the updates began which has bothered me, something which progressively is a growing concern. That thing is... Moon Rock Idols. No seriously, hear me out on this one. To clarify, the majority of Winona's buff (to my understanding) is construed in a massive buff to her item/structure creation. I understand that there are perks around her character itself, however for the sake of this we'll be focusing primarily on her new structures, as well as the one issue I've noticed developing in relation to the usage of moon rock idols. After the calming down of her hype, a significant portion of players I encountered have started using her solely to build her structures and then immediately switch back to their (usually) meta characters, making her "buff" really more a buff to the farms which can be used by any character (ironically buffing the meta even more). She became what I half-jokingly like to call a "swap" character, which is a term I coined for a character who's only useful for their items/structures, but isn't actually played because they're still not Wolfgang or Wickerbottom. While I agree that being a "swap" character is better than not being played at all I don't think it's necessarily the game design DST should have, at least in my opinion. Characters should be buffed so that they're played, not used merely as construction tools for another, more powerful character. This issue stems from moonrock idols themselves, which degrade the importance of character choice as a whole (you can be anyone on essentially a whim with no realistic limits) however the purpose of this discussion isn't really so much about these items themselves (although they need some sort of fix in my opinion) as it is the upcoming rebalance for this month: Willow. Now why would I be concerned about this? Because Bernie and the lighter both exist, and the same concept can be applied to them. Make no mistake, buffing a character's items as opposed to the character themselves is not by any means a bad thing, it's still a buff, however it's also indirectly a buff to everyone else in addition, which is arguably not the intention of "character-specific" items. To sum up what I'm saying is I'm concerned with the rebalance Klei is going to use up a lot of their assets working on Bernie instead of working on Willow as a character herself, which is going to realistically have one of two outcomes. Either Bernie will be useful enough to matter, resulting in people swapping to Willow solely to craft him and then swapping back (similar to Winona now) or he's still not going to matter, either of which at it's core isn't a good thing. I find it extremely unlikely that the buff if focused heavily on Willow's items will garner enough for people to be interested in actually playing her so much as it will cause people to just have yet another set of tools to acquire when they switch characters. There's multiple solutions to this issue, and I'm completely aware it may not be an issue at all in practice, as Klei may focus solely on Willow herself for the rebalance (we obviously have no idea). Foremost, (unfortunately) nerfing moonrock idols in some way may be a solution. Since I'm not a fan of nerfing stuff (it usually makes the game less fun) I'm not exactly thrilled at this thought, however perhaps a tentative cooldown could be considered as a simple solution that doesn't ruin their purpose and yet makes them not spammable (making character choice at least slightly more important as a result). Another solution is if the future rebalances focus solely on the characters themselves moreso over their items/structures. Obviously Winona is a fringe case where her items and structures being her main thing is thematically appropriate, however future character reworks should be more focused on the character over their items (unless their items are genuinely character specific, ie can't be transferred and used by another). Honestly I'm probably just paranoid and this may not even end up being an issue, and I recognize that. I just want Klei to focus more on the characters themselves and consider the implications of buffing character items when moonrock idols exist and are relatively easily to acquire/use. TL;DR I don't want the primary direction Klei takes with reworking Willow to go towards buffing her items, specifically Bernie, which would encourage her to become an item "swap" character. I think the focus should be on mechanically buffing Willow herself before attempting to buff the items is considered.
I was considering that a balancing point to the item actually, since it'd require the skill to move from the Hamlet save into Reign of Giants and craft it at the Ancient Ruins. It'd still serve it's main purpose, but also the additional ability of helping out in Hamlet as well. The item would actually be super helpful in Hamlet, so making it difficult to obtain is fairly fitting.
It'd be easier for Klei to just use the Thulecite Medallion, an item already designed to indicate stuff (so it makes sense) and wouldn't require a bunch of new textures being added. On top of that it gives the darn thing an actual use, instead of having now to make two separate items for essentially the same purpose. Also I'm assuming your clock wouldn't be able to change the aporkalypse calendar? Not sure though.