Willow Refresh Info and Roadmap Schedule Update

[minespatch]

Wait a sec, a dev said that she's in her late twenties while the picture above makes her seem like Wendy's age.

[FreyaMaluk]

2 minutes ago, minespatch said:

Wait a sec, a dev said that she's in her late twenties while the picture above makes her seem like Wendy's age.

I think it's probably backstory.. the trailer is gonna retake a chunk of her childhood to explain why she is the way she is

btw.. is there a list somewhere with all these emotes for the forums?

[minespatch]

Just now, FreyaMaluk said:

the trailer is gonna retake a chunk of her childhood to explain why she is the way she is

She must've gotten really fed up if they show a montage of her life.

Maybe we'll get to dress up Bernie like the friendly scarecrow?

[JohnWatson]

i'm so excited for Wendy 2

[Dynamix_Roxx]

8 hours ago, StrangeChameleon said:

If you call it a rework, I am leaving. I can get ten billions better thing from the freaking workshop. And nice mid-april OR EVEN late-april when it's early May. I am done waiting for nothing, seriously guys. You made a roadmap and then didn't say a word about it until Wortox BUT ALSO then you waited for the last moment to tell us it'll come next month, not this one. I personally lost faith in you. "Character refresh every one month." GREAT, OMG FINALLY. But no because it'll be every 2 months or even more. And remember the first content update? It was supposed to come in at least 4 days now with this rework. If it's going to take that much time, I won't expect the second rework until August. I don't even want to think when you're going to finish your DLC. Let me guess... mid-June 2021 BUT REMEMBER THAT DATES MAY CHANGE AND IT MAY BE OCTOBER 2022.
This game is literally dying but in an awful agony because instead of starting to do something about your content, you made a lot of it and deleted it instead of adding it to the main game like Gorge or Forge.
Skins are the thing that make me cry. I was collecting every single skin just in case you make an update so there will be something that I can come back to and then use them to make me and my base look way better. But sadly I guess it's time to sell them all and move to the next game because there's nothing to wait for.

I just woke up and saw this and it made my day even worse than it was going to be...
Thank you Klei for the info!

Do you realize how this hurts the game Klei? Leaving players guessing, in the dark and clueless isn’t fun. Your average player isn’t coming to the forums to vent frustration either, they just stop playing your game.  

[Charsis]

Full fire immunity, full heat immunity and hard freezing damage sound good for balance and make sense. Probably if just at least add that, lots of us will be content  

[maradyne]

9 hours ago, StrangeChameleon said:

[snip post about Klei missing dates]

...obviously somewhat of an overreaction, but that sentiment is why I've stressed leaving 'wiggle room' in date announcements. Glad to see Klei's starting to space out expected launch times, but...the option was there from the start. Giving yourself more dev time to work with staves off disappointment like this, and ensures a more polished product. Quality over quantity, as they say; taking more time is perfectly fine, but keeping promises is important, even if the delays are due to passionate ideas and bug-fixing. I've been in those shoes too. Always have an extra half of the time that you think you'll need available; preferably double that.

With that out of the way...

 

As for the rework, it sounds like her power level is close to 'neutral' now, if the other updates are anything to go by...like she'll stop being the solid negative that she currently is, gameplay-wise. So that's a plus, haha. We'll see how she handles, but I don't feel like every character has to be a boss annihilator unless that's their theme, so this seems neat. Her power...actually aligns to what I've been thinking her lore will be like.
I've got some optimism for this update. If her full fire immunity is long enough, she'll be great at managing aggro, which...is pretty much my favorite gameplay mechanic of all time, in DS or otherwise. Fire gates, woo! Another tactic that I might actually be able to get public server boosted animals newbies to help with without immediately initiating a crisis!

...this update actually makes me more excited for her lore. Not the picture, but the idea that her new pros/cons more closely align with my previous idea that she gained her fire obsession due to prolonged periods of cold isolation or separation, maybe homelessness, where Bernie and fire were her only salvation. Appeals to my inner Wendy, so here's hoping!

[Annatictac]

I do not get why everyone's here being so rude. I can understand the refresh being on the boring side, but that's no excuse to scream at the developers considering it's not even necessarily a *bad* change. It doesn't negatively impact the game, it just changes Willow a little bit.

I also don't get the obsession of full fire immunity. Fire is generally bad in Don't Starve. Most important drops will just burn if a mob dies while on fire, and fire spreads so easily that you can't even use it near base unless you want it to not exist anymore. Full heat immunity just means Willow gets to ignore the entirety of summer, which is straight up overpowered.

This refresh is perfectly fine, but it doesn't make WIllow any more appealing to play as. I would suggest allowing Willow to create controlled fires. Any fires she sets to mobs will not burn the drops and will not spread. Fire damage is weak, so it won't make her the strongest, but it gives her a unique trait worth considering.

A unique structure would be nice. I would like for her to make paper lanterns that function similar to Jack-O-Lanters, except it doesn't go away. Not really because it would be good, but because it would be pretty. DST lacks a whole lot of vanity items aside from skins.

[MrDeepDarkmind]

1 hour ago, JohnWatson said:

i'm so excited for Wendy 2

omg I never knew abigal was alive

I guess klei lied to me when they said abigal was dead......

She wasn't dead she was WILLOW ALL ALONG

[Reyd]

Update looking great, can probably tweak a few things.

As for 100% fire immunity... don't give her this. She's not some fire god lord Ragnaros. She's human and can be burnt alive like most humans (In before get this real world logic outta my DST.)

 

Nice Work Klei Please continue taking all my monies.

[Canis]

3 minutes ago, Reyd said:

Update looking great, can probably tweak a few things.

As for 100% fire immunity... don't give her this. She's not some fire god lord Ragnaros. She's human and can be burnt alive like most humans (In before get this real world logic outta my DST.)

 

Nice Work Klei Please continue taking all my monies.

get this real world logic outta my DST

[Marco BR]

1 hour ago, Dynamix_Roxx said:

Do you realize how this hurts the game Klei? Leaving players guessing, in the dark and clueless isn’t fun. Your average player isn’t coming to the forums to vent frustration either, they just stop playing your game.  

I already gave up talking about it, always received criticism, even the developers are seeing that it is difficult to present an opinion here without being judged, there are people who do not care so much and so do not think bad to receive news in half, and uncertainties ..  .. and who really loves the game and plays it every day like me, has to accept quietly, or receive a sea of hostility...

In this case, for example, the consoles are not quoted .... We do not know if we will receive this "beta", has several people waiting for this to be able to create a world and invest in it, but if we speak this, they will probably say we are looking for too much...

[h2mk]

1 minute ago, Marco BR said:

I already gave up talking about it, always received criticism, even the developers are seeing that it is difficult to present an opinion here without being judged, there are people who do not care so much and so do not think bad to receive news in half, and uncertainties ..  .. and who really loves the game and plays it every day like me, has to accept quietly, or receive a sea of hostility...

In this case, for example, the consoles are not quoted .... We do not know if we will receive this "beta", has several people waiting for this to be able to create a world and invest in it, but if we speak this, they will probably say we are looking for too much...

 

A lot of people are getting annoyed that most of this forum is complaining about this rework. That's all.

[Reyd]

5 minutes ago, Hatano Eichero said:

 

A lot of people are getting annoyed that most of this forum is complaining about this rework. That's all.

I'm 100% one of those people, I come here to see the updates from Klei (whenever they may be.) I check out the meme thread for some dankness here and there. In the last couple months all I see are complaints, attacks, and spam... It's been annoying coming to this forum.

[Marco BR]

14 minutes ago, Marco BR said:

In this case, for example, the consoles are not quoted .... We do not know if we will receive this "beta", has several people waiting for this to be able to create a world and invest in it,

exactly @Reyd,  so I decided to accept the crumbs shut up .... there's no denying it ... but I'm probably wrong, right?

[Dynamix_Roxx]

7 minutes ago, Hatano Eichero said:

 

A lot of people are getting annoyed that most of this forum is complaining about this rework. That's all.

I’m shocked! Everyone is complaining about Willow, who I also main for 2000 days solo, yet no one is talking about the timeline being missed twice already then changing into a beta announcement next month. Console players love this!! Or the lack of news or responses from Klei.

Horrible. 

[Marco BR]

2 minutes ago, Marco BR said:

exactly @Reyd,  so I decided to accept the crumbs shut up .... there's no denying it ... but I'm probably wrong, right?

and only to complement, I never complain about their work, because it is wonderful, I complain about the lack of information ... or the exclusion of the platform that I play, which always happens!

[Dynamix_Roxx]

This is how my friends felt about it.

[pedregales]

1 hour ago, Annatictac said:

[...]

I also don't get the obsession of full fire immunity. Fire is generally bad in Don't Starve. Most important drops will just burn if a mob dies while on fire, and fire spreads so easily that you can't even use it near base unless you want it to not exist anymore. Full heat immunity just means Willow gets to ignore the entirety of summer, which is straight up overpowered.

[...]

Fire immunity does not equal heat immunity though. So making her immune to fire damage would not make her immune to damage from heat induced by summer or being in the middle of a fire for too long. Full fire immunity is indeed not that great but could make Willow a much safer fire fighter overall.

Everything else I agree.

[Queron81]

Maybe the coming update for the game will give some sense to decisions Klei made for the change of Willow?

However, I have some other crazy suggestions:

• Willow could update the Fire Staff to an Infernal Staff, that acts like in The Forge (but with durabilty of course), so she uses the power of fire without setting things on fire, because she is able to control it with that staff. She also could be able to summon meteor (for 30% of the staff's durability), but that will cost her health (maybe 50 or even more), as she had to put much of her power into it. But she could also get 20 sanity for summoning meteor... just because she loves it
   
• She could craft a kind of molotov cocktail: the Hearthsfire Bomb, we also know from Forge, but it should also light things on fire in a certain area. She would need gun powder to craft it.
   
• Maybe give her the ability to craft a magic crown that turns her into a Fire-Willow for an amount of time. She could be faster, deal fire damage (even, when she get attacked), be absolute immune to fire damage and act as an light source. Klei could use the Clairvoyant Crown for it, as it would be fitting very well. Can be crafted with orange gem(s), nightmare fuel and hound teeths.

I think it is very hard, to change the characters in a way that changes the gameplay much (like for the characters in Shipwrecked and Hamlet). Currently I only see this on Wigfried, maybe on Webber, Woodie and Maxwell too, but more in an optional way. Full fire immunity for Willow wouldn't really change that much in general gameplay, it won't give you a new game experience, as there aren't really situations it would be necessary or useful or add something special to gameplay (yet!).

[fimmatek]

2 hours ago, Annatictac said:

I do not get why everyone's here being so rude. I can understand the refresh being on the boring side, but that's no excuse to scream at the developers considering it's not even necessarily a *bad* change. It doesn't negatively impact the game, it just changes Willow a little bit.

[...]

This refresh is perfectly fine, but it doesn't make WIllow any more appealing to play as. I would suggest allowing Willow to create controlled fires. Any fires she sets to mobs will not burn the drops and will not spread. Fire damage is weak, so it won't make her the strongest, but it gives her a unique trait worth considering.

[...]

 

I agree so much.

That controlled fire idea sounds really good, it would allow Willow to have a quite different (and imo interesting) combat style. For me this is the first Willow suggestion that I see which would actually make me want to play with her. It would also let her to fight mobs in the night more freely (I sometimes light hounds, spiders or such to have light for the fight).

I can already see a next level of trolling, where Willows set the base on fire, but a mob in the base, causing irl heart attack to other players

Tho, lorewise I'm not sure if this would fit her very much - I think she would prefer free, uncontrolled fires above all!  

37 minutes ago, Dynamix_Roxx said:

This is how my friends felt about it. [...]

Spoiler

While I understand the frustration about the news (I'm disappointed too), there's nothing we can do against it and honestly we should expect it to happen (we saw Klei delaying release dates a few times in the past). But I trust the devs that they do this for the better. Honestly, if they cannot make the job in the time they predicted, it's still better to wait some time more than to get very buggy or unfinished content. And I like that they give us approximations on their projects, it's really good to know what they are working on, instead of waiting without a word till they suddenly release stuff. I admit, their estimations on finish times are often very inaccurate, but it's still much better than having no clue on when we can see the new content

[BadScra]

Willow rework is okay, but still not strong enough. I think fire weapons or fire light for Willow craftable are good idea.

Edit: i can't really... really waiting for Willow's backstory... i mean origin story!

[Beehawk]

Honestly, one thing that I feel like could be really cool and also distinguish her a lot from the other characters is to let her craft a possibly weaker infinite durability fire staff. When I say weaker I don't mean just 5% less damage, maybe 15% or 25%, but imo exclusive items that characters can craft are really good ways to make them useful in DST, especially if other people can benefit from them. It's kinda like Wigfrid. I hope it isn't overdone, though.

 

[FreyaMaluk]

2 hours ago, Marco BR said:

I already gave up talking about it, always received criticism, even the developers are seeing that it is difficult to present an opinion here without being judged, there are people who do not care so much and so do not think bad to receive news in half, and uncertainties ..  .. and who really loves the game and plays it every day like me, has to accept quietly, or receive a sea of hostility...

In this case, for example, the consoles are not quoted .... We do not know if we will receive this "beta", has several people waiting for this to be able to create a world and invest in it, but if we speak this, they will probably say we are looking for too much...

I think peeps here don't realize how much overworking and deadlines can destroy the devs. These are people. 

I think Klei already gave a reason for the delay and before continuing this endless circle of crying... Think about this first 

"The scheduling we initially set for ourselves was too aggressive and we’ll be pulling back a bit so that the dev cycle for new content isn’t as hard on our team." 

[lakhnish]

22 hours ago, JoeW said:

I appreciate some of the feedback here but the "this is terrible" posts aren't super helpful. If you don't like something in particular explain why, so we can understand how you feel more. 

Saying "no fire immunity is so lame" doesn't help a lot here. Because she does get fire immunity for a period of time with a reduced damage after that. CURRENTLY it's set at Immunity for 6 second and 50% reduced damage. 

But just saying "this sucks" doesn't help us think about how to address your concerns. 

Thanks. 

Alright, I'll try my best.

Perks

The current perk preview breaks down into two categories: is it a Willow Rework or a Bernie Rework? Most of the proposed changes makes a substantial game change to Bernie in a positive direction (and I commend that an insane Willow needs to be a requirement in order for Bernie to get big and fight), but the proposed changes to Willow does not really differ much in comparison to her previous state. At best, they're simply tweaks to fire-starter/ pyromaniac aspect of Willow, but doesn't really give her a fire-based perk to capitalize on.

Disadvantages

The downsides are also rather mild, if at all a downside. It's only really newer players that are gonna freeze to death, and if they're freezing to death, at that point they're either dead or left at a sliver of health. Her upside of less damage from overheating is also inline as well, though again, if you're gonna die to overheating, you're probably dead in the first place. In short, a minimal downside.

Willow's Perk and Pyromaniac Identity

Making perks based around fire is also very difficult, as fire is more often than not a griefing/destructive mechanic in the DS/T universe, especially under a multiplayer setting (though I do use fire staves a lot in my gameplay). There's thus the conflict between Willow's Pyromaniac identity and positive gameplay. Trying to make lighting mobs on fire an encouraged part of her gameplay would lead to everything burning down, and the loot of mobs turning to ashes, both of which are undesirable results.

Perk Reworking/Brainstorming

There's also no item that Willow could steal and rework to turn into her own like with other characters (the Obsidian Tools from SW are the closest thing honestly, but really not substantial enough for Willow to alter gameplay and they also have the issue of burning stuff to the ground).

The best I could come up with is that if she burns a certain item, it can lead to a different type of fire occurring. For example, if she had the ability to set nightmare fuel on fire, the resulting product was not the fire that burns down forests, but some AoE fire that's just sets only mobs on fire and does a decent amount of fire damage. Different reactants leads to different types of fires, which have different effects. I'm just brainstorming/spitballing here, but maybe it gives an idea.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

There's really no good answer that I could come up with to try to make a Willow perk that would be interesting, fun, and unique like Wortox. She just really needs some sort of way of playing the game as Willow that would make her unique from other characters and affects gameplay, not something where she really doesn't play much differently from Wilson (with the exclusion to the Bernie changes). My line of thinking is in line with @Zeklo's comment here.