Considering how “common” of an enemy wasps are I feel like they really need a nerf in terms of lethality. Not only can they fly, cause infections through biting, spawn in groups, have insect armor, are hard to hit, and are fast, but to add torpidity venom to the mix just makes them seem overpowered for a common mob which can appear anywhere (especially since in real life their stings cause pain, not anesthesia).
Even with a high level dodge and wearing full medieval I got ambushed by a wasp out of the woods and it a got a lucky hit on me, and by the time I finally got to shelter I was too slow to close the door because it kept stinging but was able to dodge. For a “minimally dangerous” enemy these seem way too underbalanced. Considering they can just keep stinging repeatedly and it gets exponentially harder to escape (and you can even use fire on them because they fly like other last ditch methods of escape). Either the amount of strength/speed they can reduce should be capped at -3 or they should cause pain instead of tiredness.
There’s more to wasps than just that.
- they evolve too quickly;
- (canon wise) it makes no sense that the cataclysm happened and suddenly the world is already plagued with giant insects and grotesque animals on day 1, especially with wasps they are LITERALLY everywhere, having already taking over radio towers and houses and basements and random fields.
- They are way too fast, especially for big bugs, they should actually be really, really slow the bigger they get (as in much slower than the player is by default);
- the “small” variant of wasps shouldn’t be even able to cause damage to the player the way they do. Sure they could cause like one or two damage points, but even a small wasp cornering you means game over. It’s, essentially, the same as fighting a Bio Operator.
- their “stings” shouldn’t be capable of “impaling” anyone, save for the Giant variant (and even then, this shouldn’t be a “spell”/“blob magic” thing. They are giant so they shouldn’t even have a guarantee to hit the player;
- Wasps need their “colours” changed to light red for normal and red for the other variants.
Although wasps aren’t the only issue. Most of the bugs in the game seem pretty much weirdly balanced. Either 4 digits HP, or super fast, or guaranteed damage, or “blob magic” because reasons™, or ridiculously quick evolution processes, or the fact that many of the insects in the game do not fight the zombies which never made sense to me. Or all of the above. See: Dragonflies. See: Ladybugs.
Why don’t they attack zombies? “Reasons™”
The standard size (dog to human sized) bugs seem to be balanced and where the implemented first. The mega variaties that where implemented later where never balanced properly and had thier HP multipied by a factor of 20 becease they would flee to soon otherwise and their speed quartered. This leaves us with insects that can easily be out walked but that can also survive a cannonball to the face.