Jump to content

Recommended Posts

    In various video games, mostly co-operation based, characters are split into classes, that differ in their playstyle by applying different positive and negative peaks. This way, every hero is intended to be “fun to play”, which is made out of two major factors:
a)Character “x” offers a fair risk-reward system, that is based around the player’s skill, punishing lack of the knowledge and bestowing the best of the best.
b)Character “x” is not able to outperform character “y” in their main role, and mutually.
    Now, I think that DST’s problem with rebalancing is “how to make every character enjoyable, without making them under-, or overpowered, while also providing a good risk-reward system, that thrives on special abilities and weaknesses. A good example is Wortox, who gains two times less hunger, health and sanity from food, but is able to use souls for his benefits, which are:
-Faster movement (teleporting)
-Healing 
-Food source
-Nightmare fuel farming
    The other end of the spectrum, however, shows us shallow and, in overall, weak characters that even though, are specialists in some form of survival, don’t give us a valid reason to play them, especially if another hero is able to outperform them in their very task.
    I will ask you, who do you believe is outperformed in their main role, while also being boring and weak?
    One of the reasons is Woodie, a lumberjack with a talking axe and a curse that makes his choppers 6 times as big. When we look at his stats, we can see the following:
-The infinite axe that chops 2x faster
-Log meter that needs to be filled if one doesn’t want to go beaver
-Longer friendship with Pigs/Bunnymen/Lobsters etc.
-5 sanity per pine cone planted.
    These are not necessarily horrible stats, and it gives us a fair risk-reward system, they don't make Woodie "the best" at the wood gathering, with the current champion being Maxwell, who can summon his shadow copies as "cheap" manpower. And I agree, that nerfing Maxwell in order to buff Woodie is not the best thing Klei can do. But, before we start discussing what they can do, let's look at Woodie as a character concept.
    He's a lumberjack. That's all. I'm not saying he cannot be fun to play, but the part of survival he specialises in is extremely basic - everyone can gather wood, which is necessary to survive, which means most players will have a tree farm before day 20. That's why I believe he should get a buff that extends his role - as a nature lover.
    These are my ideas for his overhaul:
-Crops planted by Woodie now grow 20% faster and will fruit in better quality crops.
-Woodie is able to make his own fertilizer from various pine cones. It quickens the time a plant is needed to grow and will sustain them in winter. Each fertilizer lasts about 5 days but needs to rot for 10 days in order to be usable.
-Lucy is now prone to dullness. The duller it is, the more it will take to chop down trees. It can be sharpened by using cut-stone as a whetstone (each cut stone restores 50% of its durability, and Lucy itself has 175 durability
points).
-Woodie is able to craft a "Wooden dam", a tent-like structure used to immediately recover from Werebeaver form. It has 6 uses, and also 150% water resistance (dries the player quickly). Everyone is able to use the dam, but only Woodie can build it.
-While in Werebeaver form, Woodie now loses hunger two times quicker than usual.
-While in Werebeaver form, Woodie doesn't freeze, for a cost of immediate overheat.

TL;DR - Woodie is outperformed by Maxwell. Overhaul: Woodie is a farmer with own fertilizer that works in winter, Lucy needs to be sharpened in order to be used, Woodie is able to make his own tent that immediately puts him back into human form + dries players quickly, Werebeaver is good at winter but bad in summer + 2x faster hunger loss.

I'm prone to any suggestions and/or critique.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I dont put characters in a "class" system, every character is there own play style. woodie as a character needs a beaver buff since he has minimum defense and can die easily. beaver dps is ok since it is about spear damage.also woodie normaly is pretty ok as is with the planting pinecones sanity is nice.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Having Woodie as a pseudo-farmer role doesn't really grab me. His character is entirely based around being a lumberjack, and you can do a lot of things with the idea if you're creative enough. Maybe:

 

-Allow Woodie to craft closely packed trees (which would be 1 prefab) with numerous pinecones. When grown, the tree group acts like an immovable structure which can be used as a (flammable) wall that's unable to be chopped down. (If this sounds familiar, yes, this is an unimplemented feature)

-"Lumber Yard turf": When placed, trees on top of it grow twice as fast, and don't shrink back down to tier 1 after being full grown. If a Werebeaver is standing on this turf, shadow creatures aggro'd to the Werebeaver wont spawn. (already present shadow creatures don't despawn) Other insane players do not get this affect.

-"Cursed Lumber Yard turf:" When placed, trees on top of it are twice as likely to become a treeguard. If a Werebeaver is standing on this turf, shadow creatures have a higher chance to spawn, and the max amount of shadows per person is increased, similar to the nightmare amulet. This only affects the Werebeaver, and other insane players do not get this affect.

-Lumber Chest: A chests that has 25 (5x5) slots of storage, however only logs, pinecones, and boards are allowed to be put in it.

-Woodcutter: A structure Woodie is able to create. When standing close to it, boards can be crafted with a reduced amount of logs. (Woodie can craft boards with 2 logs, other characters can craft with 3 logs, which is still impressive when mass-producing boards)

 

Now voila, the Lumberjack is now able to create a Lumber yard for base.

Before you say that this would just make Woodie a character you pick for a few days and then switch off, here's a friendly reminder that Winona exists.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

14 minutes ago, Canis said:

Having Woodie as a pseudo-farmer role doesn't really grab me. His character is entirely based around being a lumberjack, and you can do a lot of things with the idea if you're creative enough. Maybe:

 

-Allow Woodie to craft closely packed trees (which would be 1 prefab) with numerous pinecones. When grown, the tree group acts like an immovable structure which can be used as a (flammable) wall that's unable to be chopped down. (If this sounds familiar, yes, this is an unimplemented feature)

-"Lumber Yard turf": When placed, trees on top of it grow twice as fast, and don't shrink back down to tier 1 after being full grown. If a Werebeaver is standing on this turf, shadow creatures wont spawn (already present shadow creatures don't despawn)

-"Cursed Lumber Yard turf:" When placed, trees on top of it are twice as likely to become a treeguard. If a Werebeaver is standing on this turf, shadow creatures have a higher chance to spawn, and the max amount of shadows per person is increased, similar to the nightmare amulet.

-Lumber Chest: A chests that has 25 (5x5) slots of storage, however only logs, pinecones, and boards are allowed to be put in it.

-Woodcutter: A structure Woodie is able to create. When standing close to it, boards can be crafted with a reduced amount of logs. (Woodie can craft boards with 2 logs, other characters can craft with 3 logs, which is still impressive when mass-producing boards)

 

Now voila, the Lumberjack is now able to create a Lumber yard for base.

Before you say that this would just make Woodie a character you pick for a few days and then switch off, here's a friendly reminder that Winona exists.

It depends on the cost of these crafts, but overall it's a solid idea (this is how I see the cost)

"Lumber Yard turf" cost - 4 logs, 2 ash, 1 forest turf

"Cursed Yard turf" cost - 1 living log, 2 ash, 1 forest turf

"Lumber Chest" cost - 4 boards (can you put twigs/living logs/twiggy-cones/birch-nuts in it to?)

"Woodcutter" cost - 3 boards, 1 gear, 1 doodad

Question: outside the craftables, would Woodie/Werebeaver/Lucy remain the same or be changed in any way?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

He’s a lumberjack, and with his specialty being wood, he should be the best at gathering it, regardless of his power level.  However the only way to do this realistically is to change Maxwell first, along with nerfing his wood cutting abilities, which means Klei should probably change Maxwell before Woodie.  

I’ve seen some arguing that he doesn’t need to be the best wood cutter because of his other uses, but his ability to chop down rocks in his Werebeaver form is once again overshadowed by Maxwell, and his other perks can even take away from the character, such as restoring sanity from pine cones, and his increased animal loyalty rate is also incredibly useless.

Adding more small perks to him will make him overly complex and confusing, as he already is, but that’s not to say that it can’t or shouldn’t be done, rather that his main ability should be the one that’s focused on first.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Lucy being weaker than an infinite durability cane is no bueno. She should at least match the cane if not straight up be a full infinite axe b/c that's Woodie's thing and she makes u pay with her voice, lol (Is an infinite magical axe too much to axe for?) :D  Werebeaver only doing intro weapon spear damage also doesn't cut the mustard imho. I'd like to see him match a tentacle spike or so. Also, Werebeaver is too squishy and lacks insulation. Would like to see those made more durable/increased reasonably. He takes weather damage a little too easily and is so fragile that he can't handle very many hits from the twin terrorbeaks he normally hosts after his sanity drains in short order.

I have no problem with human Woodie that I can think of atm. Seems good enough (please keep 5 sanity per tree cone/nut plant), but I'd really like to see Werebeaver become more viable in combat and harvesting. As it is u can only harvest 6 fully mature trees and one lower tier tree before filling log metre and returning to human form (I may have forget proper stats but it's something like that. 6-7 or maybe 11? Nothing more than that for sure.)

Sanity drains too fast, you can't regain sanity/health stats via any mechanic, and so u can't easily extend Werebeaver mode to make it really worthwhile. I wanna be able to remain in werebeaver for extended periods of time (even indefinitely) if you have the experience/preparation/skill to manage some introduced mechanic(s) to regain sanity/health. I plant a 10x10 tree farm (400 pine trees) and would really <3 to be able to harvest it in one go if you can manage the werebeaver minigame stat balance (be able to fight shadows, survive more than a few hits, maybe regain sanity/health in some manner via combat with shadows or by eating logs, etc. and be able to finish the job before transforming back). I really appreciate being able to choose my tree target to selectively harvest trees vs. the max axe shadow minions' everything goes approach. ;P

It also bothers me that during a full moon, combat does not in anyway count as replenishment of the log metre. Yes, it's not 'wood' material, but ur gnawing on something with ur incisors, so if it at least 'suspended' the drain or lessened it considerably that'd be amazing! If you can kite and bite successfully you should be rewarded for it imho. Let surviving long term in Werebeaver be tough but fair; a reward to the player for learning the mechanics to replenish stats and survive the combat and environmental challenges you'll encounter.  The longer you can maintain the Werebeaver flow the greater ur harvest and combat success.

I'd really like to see Werebeaver be viable in certain scenarios in boss fights.  Right now u **** ur pants if u become Werebeaver during a Toadstool fight b/c good luck via big burst damage (boom shrooms and stomp) but shouldn't Werebeaver be survivable and a legitimate strategy to use to take out Sporecaps, for example?! Fuelweaver gnaw out of bone cage potential? Or night vision for lighting free boss night fights! I hope to see boss fights being possible and proper ruins combat etc. rewarded for Werebeaver in a skilled/experienced player's hands.

Thank you for the opportunity to share our feedback and see it possibly come to fruition during this character rework Klei! 

P.S. You know what really sucks Klei? Having to make an axe for a weapon to kill a Koalefant early game because Lucy is useless in comparison. It requires 37 hits to kill a Koalefant with Lucy  vs. 19 for a non-magical, FINITE, regular axe made from a hunk of flint. WHAT? That's about TWICE the effort to kill a Koalefant early game, and TWICE the opportunities for failure.

It feels really bad to have to craft that flint axe when Lucy is hanging off ur belt/whining in ur bag to be let out to do work/fight but she's way more of a risk than a reward. What's even MORE outrageous is that a mere WALKING CANE, a TORCH, and Willow's LIGHTER (an infinite weapon) among others, all make a better Koalefant killer than Lucy the magical axe, as they each require only 30 hits. Feels bad indeed.

Make Werebeaver cool again, and a real weight puller/team player in terms of harvest & combat (yes, even boss combat) potential! An intelligent human director wrapped up in a robust water-resistant, weather-resistant, thick-skinned hide; a sharp-toothed Were-Beaver gnawing machine/beast suit. In other words, a force to be reckoned with. :)

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Willow was just the "Girl that likes fire" and there was not much to expand on that, so Klei added Bernie as a way to expand the character in more ways than just fire.

Woodie's abilities don't need to be all centered around wood gathering and planting.(I suggested giving him some kind of carpenter skills in other thread)

Maxwell also should have more magic tricks than just the gathering clones(and the not so useful combat one).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

Please be aware that the content of this thread may be outdated and no longer applicable.

×
  • Create New...