Wonnafyt

[Lujo]

I've been meaning to bring it up for discussion for a while now, Darvins post about the Rat and the Goat daily made me think it might be a good time. I've been researching this thing over the course of an almost full playhtough, and I'm not entirely sure what to think, except that it's kinda, well... Things are rarely really broken (or gamebreaking as it were), even though the word comes up a lot, but this thing might actually be just that. It's one of those things which is not hard to abuse, but it's kinda hard to notice that that's what's going on unless you play a lot, and I wanna present the whole deal from different angles.

It rarely ever gets mentioned but the one time we were looking at it somewhat carefully was when we brought up the old fighter (who didn't have his XP reduction benefits). Some of us were keen on getting every glyph buffed and clearly usable, and this also resulted in glyph buffs and several deities who didn't have starting glyphs getting them (and also having changed interactions with some). Looking back, this actually caused problems - Pissorff became something that's no longer balanced by not being able to prep it, Byceps now gives too much JJ piety, Getindare had dodge prediction (but we caught that one on time).

But what didn't happen was any gods getting Wonnafyt, and this had been suggested, but the devs said, and some of us noticed on our own, that Wonnafyt is by default really, really disruptive to how the game is supposed to work on it's own and that making it preppable would mean you start the run with many of your passageways declogged and an effortless popcorn bowl.

Now think about that for a second. Whenever strategy and builds are discussed and compared, not being able to pick kills with impunity is sort of out of the question. Which is silly, because a lot of maps are designed to deny you that or stifle your attemps at that. I've seen someone in the tweak suggestion thread or any of the new build threads ask for content which would make the maps more challenging or involving - and the thing is that many of the maps ARE challenging and involving, but it highly depends on which glyphs you score and when.

It may sound strange that I bring up Wonnafyt of all things, when Wheytwut and Pissorf are preppable and Endiswall lets you literally no-clip, but the more I play the more runs divide themselves neatly into two kinds - ones where I had Wonaffyt and one where I didn't.

What I think happened with it is that it got overbuffed, or possibly even buffed in a way that actually pushes it over the edge in a sneaky way.

What's the deal with it:

- It kinda always appears very close to the entrance, because the resident efficiency maniacs (myself included probably) wanted it to always be usable whenever it actually spawned. With "usable" meaning getting the absolute maximum out of it (what people call "optimal"). This actually makes it a prep.

It's really noticable if you play a lot of Goats like I did recently (or if you preped a lot of old Balanced Dagger). Mas09's Ledger is pretty much the only thing I prep on my goats (as in I play them with just that) because it's effect all but removes the food management challenge aspect from the goat. It's like a cheat on him, really, you dodge that whole thing entirely.
But what happens a lot of the time is that I run into Wonnafyt immediately, and that turns out to be even stronger in the exact same way, so I end up not even having to use the prep which guarantees I can't really lose a goat run, because of the "prep" which also kinda guarantees I can't lose a goat run except it also gives me XP and arranges the stuff I pull out of the fog neatly.

Goats are just an illustration, other guys don't have food, what about them? They get a guaranteed popcorn bowl of slowed popcorn and they also don't have to waste any popcorn while exploring. Which is rather huge! But I'll get to that, this was about the "preppy" aspect of it. So is the following one:

- You could argue that you have to spend 5 mana to cast it, but if you practically start out with it every time you see it - you have to explore anyway, and it lets you explore without ever having to waste popcorn, temporary powerups or making an inopportune kill.

What this means is that it doesn't, in fact, have an actual cost to it. You get a popcorn bowl, have all your lvl 1 guys for the boss / whatever fight, never have to kill a zombie while in Drac to get him out of the way (or a spellcaster or whatever), always get the XP you want when you want it, always have curse removal when you need it, etc etc, while also being able to explore and pick up stuff which then lets you get the "optimal" higher level kill.

Goats, of all people, aren't affected by the cost, and they should be the least likely class to spam utility and need to explore afterwards.

These two things have in practice divided my runs into those with Wonnafyt and those without, and the power and efficiency of whatever I'm playing goes through the roof on the ones with Wonnafyt. I'm even using it while in Taurog O.O

So the thing no. 1 is: It's a really powerful map-solving prep with no oportunity cost whenever it appears.

- Ok, what else does it do? Well, it either appears or doesn't, but if it does, what you have is a popcorn bowl full of slowed popcorn. A guaranteed popcorn bowl is allready huge - you don't have to find the popcorn in order to use it, which means you always max out on it. Then you have the fact that it all but eliminates the whole "difficult to much on" aspect of various monsters while also boosting the XP gain from them (which also automatically maximizes any ding strat).

It also lets you get piety with guys who want you killing stuff, and not lose piety with guys who want you not killing stuff. The second part can be achieved with other exploration glyphs a lot of the time, but the first part is quite powerful, so much so that if you've prepped Taurog for a non-warmonger it's actually prefferable to check if it spawned before joining and it's also pretty fair game to keep it untill level 4-5 (if not longer) even once you join. The first part is kinda more powerful than with other exploration glyphs, as it kind of eliminates the downside of say, Mystera or Drac but in a way which doesn't require you exploring, it does so in advance.

For the bloodmage it also means a ton of blood pools without actually looking for monsters. For Assassins it's pretty obvious what it does.

- Right, so the thing no.2 is: It creates a popcorn bowl rather effortlessly, one with double experience on lvl 1 guys, 0.5X as much on lvl 2 guys, removes the "tricy popcorn" aspect from monsters while maximizing proffits from picking your targets.

- The next thing is that efforless popcorn bowling really boosts guys with a very specific gameplan, the extreme builds we often call "optimal" so scoring it or not scoring it, at least right away, blows stuff out of the water. Gorgon has big starting out penalties not so much because she's particularly powerful (I believe), but because she starts out with an exploration glyph.

Anyone who finds Wonnafyt doesn't have her penalties, but gets an exploration glyph which is also a popcorn bowling glyph. Now, I'd argue that JJ is a bit over the top (rather than underpowered as was popularly believed) because he hands out a Wheytwut, but Wheytwut is actually somewhat balanced by it's price and the fact that you have to actually find your targets and doesn't result in a max-gain popcorn bowl unless you actually explore the whole map looking for stuff, Wonnafyt kind of always does.

---

Right, so I went overly long on this, but I'm not proposing anything specific, I've just been abusing the hell out of the glyph, and there's a lot to be said and a lot of counterpoints to be refuted (feel free to bring them on, I would've allready posted all about how you can use it on any map with snapshots and stuff I'm just tired), but what I know is this:

- It brings monsters to you in a predicatble pattern
- It sorta always spawns in a prep-like fashion
- It guarantees a popcorn bowl without the player navigating the map to find the popcorn
- It slows stuff doubling your basic popcorn bowl XP output
- It reduces all monsters from obstacle to powerup even ones designed to still be an obstacle if outleveled
- It lets you choose your targets throughout the run for max benefits whether you're punching upward, downward or same-level

And all this is either too much or wrong. I think either always spawning next to the entrance or the slow was too much.

[flap]

If I had to choose, I'd rather have it not to spawn next to the entrance.
Using it to slow monsters is a useful battle trick (one shot dangerous same level monsters) that I would hate to loose.

[Darvin]

[Lujo]

^ Yes, except it makes it not just good, it makes it seriously too good. Otherwise we don't disagree on the fact that finding it later is significantly worse than probably any other glyph, and that it's too simmiar to Wheytwut, but finding it early is just too brutal once you try it out a few times and figure out how to not trap yourself with it.

And you're not as right about not finding it right away being all that meh - I keep it around for a long time, because it really solves any islands/maze map because there's always stuff to pull out of the fog in a direction you just haven't explored yet. It's actually really strong for this reason, because declogging lvl 4's and 5's which may or may not debuff you and you can't kill them in one hit is well worth it.

However, the slow part of it just front loads it even more, could it have had any other effect? Does that glyph actually have a place in the game, really?

I get the idea behind having a popcorn bowling feature, but this thing has no... interactivity to it. It just creates a popcorn bowl for you, the ideal one, for a low cost, and also declogs the map. If it spawns you're probably 100% guaranteed to be X much more powerful in several ways regardless of anything, if it doesn't - you have a bigger chance of playing the actual game. It takes over any run, and there's no reason not to let it, really.

[lieronet]

Lujo, I think you're overstating the benefits of the glyph somewhat. I would say it's a strong glyph, certainly - I'm always happy to find it - but it doesn't take over my runs, and there's nothing wrong with having strong glyphs in the game. Starting right on top of the glyph, and with good play, the only guarantee is that it will add 15-20 bonus XP. If it's a maze map, then it can help declogging, but you need to find space to put the monsters in the first place. There's no guarantee that there are goblins/gorgons on the map, either. The XP is strong, but it's the only guarantee - the other benefits are situational.

I also think you're forgetting that it's a glyph - they're SUPPOSED to be strong. Power-level wise, I think they're intended to lie between items and gods. Every glyph you run across except BYSEPPS is hugely impactful to your play. I don't think WONAFYT is too out of line here, and in fact I don't think it's even at the peak - I'd much rather find GETINDARE or B2P, and I'd probably be okay with trading it for ENDISWAL or CYDSTEP as well.

[Darvin]

[Tinker]

I think WONAFYT does have an opportunity cost to it - you spend you mana. Unless you're worshipping Mystera, you could spend your mana on other things instead. Like breaking down walls; or plain simply just killing stuff.

Except for Goatperson runs, I generally prefer to find WEYTWUT (instead of WONAFYT), because WEYTWUT doubles up as a final strike glyph on top of being a declogger/slower, so you can basically do everything - slow, declog and fight - with the same one glyph. And yes, for a Goat it's life critical to find food, so for a Goat run it's a massive difference whether you find WONAFYT - Ledger, or no Ledger.

[Lujo]

I think it seems like I'm overstating the effect of the glyph because it's power isn't in dealing damage to the boss. I don't think it's a "strong" glyph or that it's impact has anything to do with numbers and that's just the thing.

If it's a maze map, it's not that it can help you declog it - it very much so declogs it. Once you know how the monsters land, the only map where it's not easy to use is Ick Swamp. Doubledoom, Labyrinth, Dragon Isles, Cursed Oasis, Slime Pits, Eastern Tundra, Whatever - they lose all meaning if you have it, because as opposed to Wheytwut, Pissorf or Endiswal, you don't have to have a clue where stuff is - stuff is where you want it to be, and if you're not high enough level to kill whatever's in your way, you just spike it with your slowed popcorn and wonnafyt new stuff into the place of the old stuff. After a certain point, you don't even have to explore to find anything but the boss.

And what's funny is that while Getindare is really strong, and B2P changes so much, I've kinda run through the game using mostly Pissorf and Wonnafyt (and Wheytwut), using mostly race/class combos people avoid and doing VTs in places people avoid. And I'm pretty sure by this point no other glyph is nearly as effortlesly impactful as those two, for reasons that got nothing to do with numbers or fighting anything.

Every other glyph is interchangable in what it does - I don't care one hoot which one I find as it all boils down to the same thing, doing damage on this or that. Wonnafyt, though, does things to the map which translate to pure upside with no downside and flat out makes the map / monster roster a non-factor all the time. Wheytwut is simmilar, but it costs mana, and wastes exploration when you use it and you have to find your targets, so it's much less disruptive even if it's more "powerful". I do think Wheytwut makes prepping JJ a bit brutal, but that's a whole different topic.

Just imagine if Wonnafyt wasn't a glyph but a built in UI ability which lets you press a button and have monsters pulled out of the map and arranged neatly for you. This is the game I'm playing when it spawns, and it's very much not the game I'm playing when it doesn't, and it's not in any way affected by any other element in the game - every run with it is the same. I'll convert/ignore any other glyph at least some of the time, and whether I use it or not will be determined by other elements - not so with Wheytwut.

[Tinker]

I really don't see WONAFYT sticking out so much. As it is, I need to force myself to use any glyph outside of BURNDAYRAZ, and see most other glyphs as refill...

Think of it: fireball is actually the best utility glyph. You want to avoid getting hit by the monster? Wait, fireball already does that. You have a clogged corridor? Blast one monster to smithereens, and your path reveals itself. You want bonus XP? Pulvarize a high-level monster and gain tons of bonus XP. A monster is far away? Kill every other monster between where you are and where it is, and it will appear to be much closer!

[Darvin]