On Wormwood and the Disease Mechanic

[GetNerfedOn]

Now that the advent of Wormwood's arrival into DST has come upon us, many new ideas have taken root for a plethora of purposes, whether they be to balance him, strengthen him, or improve his synergies with other players, among other things.

What I would like to focus upon is his plantlike aspects, and thus his relations to Disease.   

First, as some others have mentioned in other threads (though im really sorry if i cannot credit you anymore, as i cannot tell any longer which threads these were mentioned), it would be beneficial for him to craft a material to cure disease-stricken plants in exchange of his otherwise useless Poison Balm.

Second, it would be an interesting downside in my opinion (though, do correct me if i am wrong) to see Wormwood stricken with Disease himself.

I would envision this downside to occur during summer, leading to his recently-grown foliage and flower shriveling off him and becoming Rot, and his body becoming more shriveled and grey, leading to him having less health and a bit of runspeed taken from him.

What do you guys think?

[ButterStuffed]

It’d be cooler if disease just stopped existing in the first place.

Anyways, disease stricken Wormwood might be interesting but he’s already one of the more complex characters. I don’t know if he would be anymore fun with even more buffs/nerfs tacked onto him.

[-Variant]

I thought his compost wrap cured plants, but I might've been wrong there.
Why not make that the case? Sure, you've got the wrap, but do you heal yourself or the plants?

Sick Wormwood sounds cool, but I'd rather it be less max health, no run speed loss, and whatnot till you cure yourself.

 

1 hour ago, ButterStuffed said:

It’d be cooler if disease just stopped existing in the first place.

 

Nnnnnnoooooo, It's cool, I like it. 

Just add in ways around it, no need to remove something people might enjoy.

Or disable it in world gen.

[ShadowDuelist]

I like the idea that he can cure diseased plants, but if a paid dlc character becomes the only source of curing a mechanic that already most people hates, I think there will be some really bad feedback around.

I think the only way to implement something of the sorts, is that there is a cure everyone has access to, and particularly wormwood could get either a cheaper version of it, or a way unique to himself to prevent disease altogether.

[Viktor234]

1 hour ago, GetNerfedOn said:

First, as some others have mentioned in other threads (though im really sorry if i cannot credit you anymore, as i cannot tell any longer which threads these were mentioned), it would be beneficial for him to craft a material to cure disease-stricken plants in exchange of his otherwise useless Poison Balm.

 

[Well-met]

disease is not going anywhere. It's there to put some tradeoff/risk into shoveling the entire world into your personal back garden.

[axxel]

1 minute ago, Hell-met said:

disease is not going anywhere. It's there to put some tradeoff/risk into shoveling the entire world into your personal back garden.

But you can reset disease in the warning phase. Also grassgeckos and twiggy trees will eventually spawn and won't be sick anymore. It would be the same. While I agree that important resources should be present for everyone the entire server shouldn't be punished (even in survival) because some megabases have the entire grass and sapling population. Twiggy trees did it right, grassgeckos on the other hand...

[Maxposting]

56 minutes ago, axxel said:

grassgeckos on the other hand...

( hey kiddo, peter griffin here, lemme explain this secret )

Spoiler

Grass Gekko Don't Starve Together is highly unbalanced due to it being able to regrow its tail after only 16 minutes, and it drop its tail every time it gets startled and almost any mob startles it, allowing easy grass farms which can be afk loaded using the ocuvigil.

 

[me real life]

9 hours ago, GetNerfedOn said:

Second, it would be an interesting downside in my opinion (though, do correct me if i am wrong) to see Wormwood stricken with Disease himself.

I would envision this downside to occur during summer, leading to his recently-grown foliage and flower shriveling off him and becoming Rot, and his body becoming more shriveled and grey, leading to him having less health and a bit of runspeed taken from him.

Do you think this would be fun? Do you think this would make for enjoyable gameplay? This is something that people need to ask themselves when coming up with an "interesting downside" for a character. Ideally, a downside should be:
- Interesting to work around.
- Possible to work around.
- A significant change to how you approach the game.
- Most importantly, fun.
In my opinion, Wormwood getting diseased during the summer would be none of these things. It would either be uninteresting to work around (if there's some kind of cure), or impossible to work around (if there's no cure). It wouldn't change how you approach the game at all, it'd just make all tasks take longer. And most importantly, it just wouldn't be any fun.

3 hours ago, __IvoCZE__ said:

allowing easy grass farms which can be afk loaded using the ocuvigil.

The ocuvigil doesn't keep an area loaded, it only updates the map in that area. Placing an ocuvigil near grass gekkos won't increase the production of grass in any way. It's a reasonable assumption, but it's sadly an incorrect one.

[Maxposting]

2 minutes ago, Sunset Skye said:

 

The ocuvigil doesn't keep an area loaded, it only updates the map in that area. Placing an ocuvigil near grass gekkos won't increase the production of grass in any way. It's a reasonable assumption, but it's sadly an incorrect one.

But then why do i get more grass when i have an ocuvigil nearby?

[me real life]

Just now, __IvoCZE__ said:

But then why do i get more grass when i have an ocuvigil nearby?

Confirmation bias.

[Maxposting]

Just now, Sunset Skye said:

Confirmation bias.

looking at it now you are propably right...

it depends how often does a player visit said farm, yeah?

[TurtleKitty]

Wormwood deserves good health and happiness. 
If they add anything more to the disease mechanic involving him it needs to be removable in the game options, which is where most players disable disease to begin with. Though I am interested in what his empathetic quotes are towards poor plant friends with the sickies. 

[Terra_Zina]

On 2019-06-01 at 3:01 PM, GetNerfedOn said:

Second, it would be an interesting downside in my opinion (though, do correct me if i am wrong) to see Wormwood stricken with Disease himself.

I would envision this downside to occur during summer, leading to his recently-grown foliage and flower shriveling off him and becoming Rot, and his body becoming more shriveled and grey, leading to him having less health and a bit of runspeed taken from him.

 

On 2019-06-02 at 12:26 AM, Sunset Skye said:

Do you think this would be fun? Do you think this would make for enjoyable gameplay? This is something that people need to ask themselves when coming up with an "interesting downside" for a character. Ideally, a downside should be:
- Interesting to work around.
- Possible to work around.
- A significant change to how you approach the game.
- Most importantly, fun.

Or, think of it like this way: If a characters downside makes the player say "God flubbergasting dammit" rather than "Oh well", then it's poorly designed.

Current Woodie and pre-rework Willow have/had these types of downsides.

[minespatch]

3 hours ago, Terra_Zina said:

"God OOF dammit"

How did the forum censor not catch that?

[Terra_Zina]

1 hour ago, minespatch said:

How did the forum censor not catch that?

When you don't type out the full word, the Forum censor bot can't catch the cuss. I'm cheating the system!

Spoiler

I'll go ahead and censor it, though.

 

[Maxposting]

28 minutes ago, Terra_Zina said:

the Forum censor bot can't catch the cuss.

HahAHa! F r i c k!