Willow Refresh Info and Roadmap Schedule Update

[FreyaMaluk]

2 hours ago, JoeW said:

 

• Bernie grows big and will taunt and fight most hostile creatures when Willow is nearby and insane.
• Bernie will still taunt Shadow Creatures when any other player is nearby and insane.

 

@JoeW could you pls give a bit of info on Bernie stats?

and does she need to be insane always for bernie to grow in size?

[ShadowDuelist]

1 hour ago, Chris1448 said:

There's more that I can't think of right now, anyone care to add on?

It can be abused too. You can try now with willow and the scalemail for the fire inmunity.

Drop 40 ropes to the ground one by one (not in a stack) light them on fire for less than 20 seconds and then put out with a water baloon. Standing there gives you literally hundreds of sanity points instantly, and you dont loose not even 1 rope. This can be used to dish a ton of damage to mobs as well, similar to DS fire farms. With innate fire inmunity she wouldnt even need the scalemail...

About bernie, if she can still craft bernies we'd get an army of bernies fighting and luring as long as she is insane, which wont affect her at all since bernies lure shadows too. Thay sounds absolutely amazing...

Also for those complaining about getting the beard, you can get several stacks of beard by day 10, just seek bunnymen, get insane, and kill them. Also find the monkeys, wait for nightmare phase, and also kill them. 

The perks proposed by klei seem really strong if you think them through, and the perks proposed by the community seem even more powerful.

I have mixed feelings about fire inmunity now. We'll get pro players like laknish or jantonio showing everyone these fire farms exploits on youtube, and then everyone will complain how OP she is...

[GuyNamedChris]

1 minute ago, ShadowDuelist said:

It can be abused too. You can try now with willow and the scalemail for the fire inmunity.

Drop 40 ropes to the ground one by one (not in a stack) light them on fire for less than 20 seconds and then put out with a water baloon. Standing there gives you literally hundreds of sanity points instantly, and you dont loose not even 1 rope. This can be used to dish a ton of damage to mobs as well, similar to DS fire farms. With innate fire inmunity she wouldnt even need the scalemail...

That's actually super useful, wow. Now I want fire immunity even more. Sanity management and makeshift fire farms sound like awesome additions to Willow.

3 minutes ago, ShadowDuelist said:

The perks proposed by klei seem really strong if you think them through

Can you elaborate? Cause I don't see it at first glance.

[FreyaMaluk]

2 minutes ago, ShadowDuelist said:

I have mixed feelings about fire inmunity now. We'll get pro players like laknish or jantonio showing everyone these fire farms exploits on youtube, and then everyone will complain how OP she is...

I also have mixed feelings but I think her direction is changing and a lot of people are resistant to accept something new...

I wrote a bit more in detail about bernie here if you want to check it out https://forums.kleientertainment.com/forums/topic/105380-on-defense-of-bernie/

 

 

[ShadowDuelist]

Just now, Chris1448 said:

Can you elaborate? Cause I don't see it at first glance.

Sure, if we can still craft bernies, just craft a full backpack of them, go fight whatever, drop them all, and get insane. Even if they deal 10 damage, its an insta army of things luring the enemies, tougher than an army of spiders.

[Canis]

5 minutes ago, ShadowDuelist said:

It can be abused too. You can try now with willow and the scalemail for the fire inmunity.

Drop 40 ropes to the ground one by one (not in a stack) light them on fire for less than 20 seconds and then put out with a water baloon. Standing there gives you literally hundreds of sanity points instantly, and you dont loose not even 1 rope. This can be used to dish a ton of damage to mobs as well, similar to DS fire farms. With innate fire inmunity she wouldnt even need the scalemail...

About bernie, if she can still craft bernies we'd get an army of bernies fighting and luring as long as she is insane, which wont affect her at all since bernies lure shadows too. Thay sounds absolutely amazing...

Also for those complaining about getting the beard, you can get several stacks of beard by day 10, just seek bunnymen, get insane, and kill them. Also find the monkeys, wait for nightmare phase, and also kill them. 

The perks proposed by klei seem really strong if you think them through, and the perks proposed by the community seem even more powerful.

I have mixed feelings about fire inmunity now. We'll get pro players like laknish or jantonio showing everyone these fire farms exploits on youtube, and then everyone will complain how OP she is...

The reason I (and Im guessing a lot of other people) really want Fire Immunity is because of creative stuff like this. If something gets out of hand, there can be a tweak to Willow's sanity gain for items on fire. However, I feel methods like this will actually allow her to be *at least par* with other characters (especially the reworked/new ones)

[GenomeSquirrel]

Just now, FreyaMaluk said:

I also have mixed feelings but I think her direction is changing and a lot of people are resistant to accept something new...

I wrote a bit more in detail about bernie here if you want to check it out https://forums.kleientertainment.com/forums/topic/105380-on-defense-of-bernie/

 

 

It’s not new though, it’s a different version of Abigail, and I already played with that toy.

[FreyaMaluk]

5 minutes ago, GenomeSquirrel said:

It’s not new though, it’s a different version of Abigail, and I already played with that toy.

not quite tho... 

She has a new meta combining insanity + taunting

as @ShadowDuelistwas saying.. you can focus in an army or Bernies for big battles or one bernie for exploration with a sewing kit to repair him in case of emergency

and bernie now fights too... I think this is cool.. we just need to see it in game..

any change expects a bit of resistance.. but we need to test further...

6 secs fire immunity and more overheating res is already much better than it was before and fire immunity would be very niche anyways..

[Spep]

2 minutes ago, ShadowDuelist said:

It can be abused too. You can try now with willow and the scalemail for the fire inmunity.

Drop 40 ropes to the ground one by one (not in a stack) light them on fire for less than 20 seconds and then put out with a water baloon. Standing there gives you literally hundreds of sanity points instantly, and you dont loose not even 1 rope. This can be used to dish a ton of damage to mobs as well, similar to DS fire farms. With innate fire inmunity she wouldnt even need the scalemail...

About bernie, if she can still craft bernies we'd get an army of bernies fighting and luring as long as she is insane, which wont affect her at all since bernies lure shadows too. Thay sounds absolutely amazing...

Also for those complaining about getting the beard, you can get several stacks of beard by day 10, just seek bunnymen, get insane, and kill them. Also find the monkeys, wait for nightmare phase, and also kill them. 

The perks proposed by klei seem really strong if you think them through, and the perks proposed by the community seem even more powerful.

I have mixed feelings about fire inmunity now. We'll get pro players like laknish or jantonio showing everyone these fire farms exploits on youtube, and then everyone will complain how OP she is...

ah, a new contender, very well, i shall present my argument then, first off, the "fire farm", sanity, in its current state, is not something that one wants for quite a long time, dark swords and all that, the damage is not exactly useful, a single fire, that does not do much damage, with it being 12 damage max per second,a mere 12 damage for each rope stack a second, remember that you need to gather all of this grass, all for less then half of a spears damage, then the bernies, bernie in his current state does not regen hp, eventually, one or more will run out of life, requiring a repair, combine this with the silk cost to make them in the first place, and unless you have a webber, and he still can spider farm post rework, thats gonna take a large amount of silk for all those repair kits / bernies once they start gettin worn down, plus, bernie does not follow players, only walks around, meaning that if you want to use them you will have to carry MANY bernies around, taking up inventory slots, and if you leave them at base, chances are another insane player will walk in eventually, causing shadows to take even more health from em.

[h2mk]

Fire immunity sounds good but I wouldn't really care if they did not add it. It really isn't THAT useful. Klei probably won't add fire immunity but I do think it would be nice if they did.

EDIT: It's definitely not op though. It's barely powerful enough for me to care whether or not it is integrated in game. Bit of a fun gimmick if you ask me, in it's current condition the reworks most helpful item is Bernie. In singleplayer Willow's only good benefit is the infinite lighter and the rework right now does not have a very good lighter. Definetely better than Willow before though. Because she had no good advantages and a very bad disadvantage. I only really played Willow so she could walk around and look pretty, glad she was on the top priority list for reworks though.

[Zeklo]

Gotta love the editor saving the wrong version of the post so you gotta rewrite it all

I'm not strongly opinionated one way or another which I guess is a problem considering how hyped the other characters/changes got me. So I'll throw in my two cents:

Disadvantages

• Wagstaff's downside is great because it limits head equip usage.
• Wormwood's downside is great because it changed the entire way player's heal.
• Wheeler's (old) downside was a huge crutch, but it did make you item aware.
• Woodleg's downside is niche to water mechanics but it's alright.
• Webber/Wortox's monster tag makes a decent amount of difference.
• Wigfrid's diet restriction makes an decent amount of difference.
• Maxwell's remarkably low HP makes an ok amount of difference.

Downsides should be relatively impassable while changing play-style.

With Wagstaff you either accept your limitation or deal with the nearsightedness. With Wormwood you ignore healing foods and stock up on healing items. With Woodlegs you would want to spend as much time on water as possible. With Webber you hang around spiders instead of pigs. With Wigfrid you can only eat meat. Maxwell's is a bit iffy but it makes you less keen on tanking/more keen on storing up extra health items.

My problem with the temperature-related stuff is that it requires you to be doing poorly already.

It's not introducing a new threat, it's making a present threat worse.

In other words, so long as you take care of downsides of Winter you take care of the downsides of Willow. I don't agree with that.

Advantages

Advantages can inadvertently change play-style and tend to focus on an integral game mechanic.
They also can't be acquired through the Celestial Portal. 

• Wolfgang makes combat quicker.
• WX-78 makes kiting/tanking easier.
• Wickerbottom makes harvesting easier.
• Maxwell makes chopping & sanity easier.

While playing Don't Starve Together you simply cannot avoid combat. I mean, sure you could but that's a lot of content you just locked yourself out of, and even then you're still kiting hounds into tentacles or something. Harvesting is the most integral part of the game, and you'll be doing it even at the end of end games. Even if you've got some awesome automated farms setup, you still gotta drop by to collect.

Fire Immunity (partially...) - Honestly even with the full fire invulnerability that the base-game provided this perk doesn't follow the loose rules I mentioned. However, one of the most recognized aspects of this ability was combat-based, and that was the insane fire DPS you could do with her perk paired with the inventory fire mechanics. 

Buff Bernie - This one isn't the worst either, and it is combat-based. A taunt as a mechanic is really neat. My main concerns lie with the theme. Willow is first and foremost a firestarter. She isn't known for being the Orphan With the Teddy Bear. Not to mention we do already have Wendy but who knows what Klei has planned for her.

Efficient Fire Fuel - This one isn't too bad. It sort of falls into harvesting, as you won't really need to harvest as much or as often. Ultimately I think it's more or less fine, but it's a bit minuscule. Not to mention this is a multiplayer game. Sure, you might have people make Willow the official fire starter at base to save a few logs, but you can just as easily get a Maxwell to chop an entire forest down. That brings me to my next point: 

Synergy

I'm talking like WIckerbottom & WX-78. Perhaps a bit overpowered, but it's a foot in the right direction. Don't Starve Together is first and foremost a multiplayer game, so I'd love to see some proper teamwork mechanics being integrated into these reworks.

So Then... What?

Surprise surprise, the hardest part of criticism: potential solutions. In all honesty, I don't have any really.
Just spitballing (not all at once obviously):

• [Disadvantage] Have Willow burn flammable head/body wear. This is probably a bit much but it would open to door to giving some mostly unused items some time to shine. i.e. using marble suits instead of logs suits until you get your grubby hands on some Thulecite.
• [Disadvantage] If you wanna do something really weird: Have Willow be just as susceptible as everyone else to overheating, and make it a constant threat—even during winter. So you'll be ignoring winter gear in place of keeping yourself cool at all times.
• [Advantage] Have Willow charge up her tools similarly to Obsidian in Shipwrecked.
• [Advantage] Have Willow do AoE fire damage around her while overheating—or other criteria. No fires set.
• [Advantage] Have Willow thaw out of the Frozen Status quicker or simply be immune. - Too Situational

The Obvious

...Still not getting anywhere? Then maybe it's time to actually consider a half-revert to her single-player counterpart.

• Give her full fire immunity back.
• Bring back inventory fires.

It isn't as flashy as Wormwood, Winona, Wortox, or Wagstaff, but it's honestly a pretty solid advantage that I think most people would be content with. I think the main focus should be on getting her a better disadvantage than the current DST one & a less griefy one than the current DS one. 

[Sinister_Fang]

Everyone is complaining about the lack of full fire immunity, and here I am, trying to remember the last time being in fire for an extended time was an actual problem...

[Well-met]

1 minute ago, Sinister_Fang said:

Everyone is complaining about the lack of full fire immunity, and here I am, trying to remember the last time being in fire for an extended time was an actual problem...

apparently it's very important to /sit in a fire but without having to craft a scalemail

[ShadowDuelist]

4 minutes ago, Shpee said:

 i shall present my argument -snip- 

It can be rope or any long burning item, whatever you have at hand. I can most likely craft 2 stacks in a visit or 2 to the desert, its not gonna be a big deal. If ropes are not in a stack and dropped individually the damage does stack. I believe the max damage it can deal is capped at 29 ropes, but its a ton of damage each second. Seek fire farm dst or killing bee queen with fire farm on youtube. You can actually do this now, with the scalemail. Please try it, remember to drop each item one by one, make sure not dropping stacks.

I agree that having an army of bernies in a backpack would take a lot of space, but still, im sure it would be worth the effort. Im not saying its OP, its probably gonna be super fun and I wanna try it out.

[FreyaMaluk]

Just now, Sinister_Fang said:

Everyone is complaining about the lack of full fire immunity, and here I am, trying to remember the last time being in fire for an extended time was an actual problem...

exactly.. fire immunity would be very situational.

[Canis]

3 minutes ago, Sinister_Fang said:

Everyone is complaining about the lack of full fire immunity, and here I am, trying to remember the last time being in fire for an extended time was an actual problem...

That's not why we want Fire Immunity, if we solely cared about that we wouldn't need it because the Fire Res. we have now practically ensures that you don't take a point of fire damage ever in your life if you don't deliberately step in fire.

Why we want Fire Immunity is so we can use it more efficiently: Such as in Combat.

Ex: Setting something on fire and then hitting it while its panicking. Sure you can already do this, but you can only put in 2 or so hits before you have to back up, or else you take damage.

You can also give the argument that it will give more sanity but personally that's "meh". I just really want to be able to use fire in combat.

 

Honestly the amount of posts along the same vein as this is a bit worrisome, especially when a lot of people (including me) have already given points to how we could use Fire Immunity to a really powerful and fun effect.

[Axelocke]

Can't wait to turn up the heat on May 7th! 

(Thanks for the Triumphant Willow daily drop! )

[NSAiswatchingus]

3 minutes ago, Sinister_Fang said:

Everyone is complaining about the lack of full fire immunity, and here I am, trying to remember the last time being in fire for an extended time was an actual problem...

It's not to counter a problem but to create wild solution. 

[Sinister_Fang]

1 minute ago, Canis said:

Why we want Fire Immunity is so we can use it more efficiently: Such as in Combat.

I've never found it useful in combat. It causes most enemies to run around and ignite everything else, while also burning most of the important drops.

[Nikki the Neko]

Looks great, can't wait to have Bernie go toe to toe with Deerclops, haha, it's gonna be awesome!

[. . .]

Underwhelming

[h2mk]

I edited my post a second ago with something that should've been a new post. I'll put it right here.

REGARDING FIRE IMMUNITY
It's definitely not op though. It's barely powerful enough for me to care whether or not it is integrated in game. Bit of a fun gimmick if you ask me, in it's current condition the reworks most helpful item is Bernie. In singleplayer Willow's only good benefit is the infinite lighter and the rework right now does not have a very good lighter. Definetely better than Willow before though. Because she had no good advantages and a very bad disadvantage. I only really played Willow so she could walk around and look pretty, glad she was on the top priority list for reworks though.

[ShadowDuelist]

Also May 7th is my bday so happy Willow bday present for me I guess 

[56933043043]

6 minutes ago, Sinister_Fang said:

Everyone is complaining about the lack of full fire immunity, and here I am, trying to remember the last time being in fire for an extended time was an actual problem...

Only ways to be ignited in the game are:

- Touch the larva of the dragonfly boss, which most people don't because they use walls to keep them out.

-Touch a lava pond, which you aren't going to because why would you ever get so close.

-Be smacked by a torch/fire staff in PvP............pains me to say this but a lot of people don't try out this way of play.

I'd like to add a suggestion of my own. Since igniting enemies has their useful drops burn to ash, why not give Willow the ability to ignite herself like any other burnable? That way she can be a living fire trap and not risk burning the drops from enemies. Even with the proposed fire resistance for 6 seconds, this could work well with a bit of risk for prolonged usage.

[Canis]

Just now, Sinister_Fang said:

I've never found it useful in combat. It causes most enemies to run around and ignite everything else, while also burning most of the important drops.

Enemies still flinch when attacked, allowing you to effectively stun lock enemies that aren't insanely fast.

You could also argue that Klei could add another perk to have mobs slain by Fire (set by Willow) wont drop ash and instead their normal items.