rework A "Few" Ideas for a Maxwell Rework

[Frashaw27]

So I have been thinking about this topic for a while now and I think I have it thought out enough to justify giving my ideas to you all. Without further ado, lets proceed, but lets us start with what we have now (I put the meat of the info in the spoilers for reading/scrolling convince).

Our current Maxwell:

Spoiler

Maxwell is a character that has 150 hunger (standard), 200 sanity (standard) that also has a constant 6.67 generation due to dapperness, and 75 health due to being frail. He also has the ability to make 4 different workers at the cost of max. sanity, nightmare fuel, and the flint tool for the job. There is a Logger which chops trees, a Miner that mines boulders, a Digger that only digs up graves and stumps, and a duelist which will attempt to help you fight. Due to how his puppets work, he is mainly a resource gathering character. The reason why he is erratically played once you have access to the end game and lunar portal is that there is other options, arguably more time efficient methods. Forest Stalker with Shadow Thurible for trees, Boulders comeback at a snails pace, Trees petrify at random, and the Duelist is useless. His dapperness perk also isn't very useful as it can easily be replaced by a Tam o Shanter. There generally isn't a reason to stay as Maxwell once character swapping is available. My Rework will change him to add benefits to stay as him, even in the end game, and now lets proceed to the actual rework.

 

Frail, but Dapper

Spoiler

His frailness is fine as is. It provides a handicap that can't easily be overcome and makes fighting a lot more interesting/stressful. His dapperness, on the other hand, I do have a idea for. First off, he starts out with his suit is torn, broken, tattered, essentially less dapper, thus giving it a less potent sanity bonus, aka the bonus that we already have. Once you get your hands on a sewing kit you can use it to repair your suit. The repaired suit will be more dapper and thus would give him his original sanity bonus of 20 sanity/min. . . . . for 3 days. As a form of balancing he will only have his boosted sanity for 3 days, providing a good enough time period to allow you to do heavy sanity draining things but won't be so long that it isn't a straight buff. It should also be noted that when wet the suits timer will drain much faster ("Water ruins a good suit you know!") as well as taking a unarmored hit. The reason why I added the repair mechanic is because I wanted his sanity boost to mean more but not be his main draw like how it is is regular DS (due to the mediocrity of the puppets in DS). As one last thing, he can't repair his suit with Winona's Duct/Flex Tape as "Quality goods require quality tools!" and I don't think that duct tape is a really dapper look for a suit.

 

Puppets
 

Spoiler

 

First off, a few overall changes. 1) All puppets can use their gold version of their respective tools (Battle Spear for Duelists) for summoning them. 2) All worker puppets will instead have 1/2 of Maxwell's max health (38/37.5) so that they might survive a hound or spider bite. 3) Duelists will now have natural armor protection of grass armor (60%) to help with tanking. 4) All puppets can wear night armor, Duelists can also wear normal log and thulucite armors. 5) While wearing a Nightmare Amulet or Bone Helm, all puppet will increase their efficiency by 25% (50% if wearing both, Duelists will do more damage, all others will do their job faster) due to wearing the items of very concentrated insanity. 6) Duelists will now use spears instead of dark swords and will now only cost 30% 6) If you have a tool skin, the puppets will also use that skinned item (not really having my hopes up for this one due to how many models there would have to be made).

Now onto the new ideas. Just tweaking how they work would just be done in a hot fix (a very involved one though), but we need to add more new stuff to improve him. My idea is that the Codex Umbra will now be Unfinished when you spawn in and would need to have pages added to finish it. How this would work is that they would require 1 Papyrus, 2 Charcoal, and one material related to the puppet, and be near a crafting station. There would be 4 different pages, one for every crafting station. Now onto the puppets themselves.

For the science station, there would be a scavenger. His special page material is 2 ropes, while his shadow material is 2 berries/juicy berries and removes 15% max. sanity. The shadow will show a X over his head until you give him a material. Once you give him a material, if he encounters that material with in 2 tiles of himself, he would run over to it and will continue doing this until there is no longer that material near him and will run over to Maxwell and give him all of the material. This puppet is mainly to help you pick up a lot of a material such as logs or rocks, may not be overly useful but it has it purpose and does it purpose well. The Alchemy engine's puppet is a porter. The special page material is 3 boards, the puppet material would a single rope and 33% sanity. He would be the odd thing out of the puppets, as it isn't a normal puppet at all. It would be a orb with terror beak legs that would open his head like how a flower blooms (slowly goes out from a single center point). The porter will have 4 slots of storage. The porter would also be ignored by the Nightmare Amulet/Bone Helm efficiency boost. The porter is suppose to be a way to carry up to 12 more things for the cost of constant insanity. The porter doesn't have 9 slots like Chester, because they shouldn't be like chest. Hutch and Chester have this special role as moving chests, and so a characters ability shouldn't outright invalidate something already in the game. As Wigfrid's Helm doesn't outright replace the Football Helmet, The porter shouldn't outright replacement for Chester/Hutch.

For the Prestihatitator, There will be a bard, special page requirement being a one man band, and the puppet requirement being pig skin with 20% sanity removal with only one being able to be summoned at a time. The bard will increase Maxwell's speed by 10% (not enough to go over the other characters speed boosts but potent enough to be alluring), will give a sanity boost to all non-Maxwell players with 5.6 sanity/min. (enough to negate the nighttime sanity lost) but only to players within 2 tiles of him, and all non-puppet followers will have their loyalty timers increased by 1.5(+50%). The bard is suppose to help Maxwell and his companions, thus giving him a little bit more team helping. For the Shadow Manipulator, it will be a knight. The special page material would be purple gems, and the shadow will require 45% max sanity and a dark sword. The knight will do 60 damage and will have immediate protection of 95%. The knight is suppose to be a direct upgrade to the duelist but requiring more difficult to acquire tools. The new puppets are meant to add a few benefits to Maxwell that aren't related to gathering materials.

Finally, the last thing I would like to add that is related to the puppets, a way to control how they act. When you summon a puppet, there will be a new command center of 3 buttons that are near the equipment slots. The commands are 1) Free, how they act now 2) Close, puppets will follow you closely and will only preform their action when you also do their actions, setting those puppets to free 3) Codex Umbra, The puppets will run over to where your Codex Umbra is and will preform their actions within 3 tiles of the Codex (like how the Logger worked in the gorge) and will stay their until you summon them back, this option will only work if you have a Codex on the ground and the Codex is also on the same level as you (Caves/Surface). When you summon a duelist or knight, there will be 3 more commands to give to only the duelist/knight. The commands are related to how they will fight 1) Tanking 2) Kiting with 1 hit 3) Kitting with 2-8 (manually determined) hits. The commands are suppose to give you more, well command, to your puppets as you being able to determine how they fight and how they follow you. The commands can be used in  a verity of situations, like using the Codex Umbra to store puppets for later or having them stay close when near base so they don't destroy anything. And now onto a new perk topic.

 

 

Magic, The 3rd Perk

Spoiler

Now I have a different idea from the common idea of "give him all of the tier 1 magic items like Wickerbottom is with science" because I think that idea might be a little too powerful. With tier one you get things like pan flutes, life giving amulets, and even meat effigy, these powerful items are just all discovered to Maxwell, and thus gives him a little too much power in the early game but also becomes useless once the Prestihatitator is made. Instead how about Maxwell is more adept for magic instead of knowledgeable. What I'm getting at is that instead knowing recipes, he knows how to use them better. For staves, armor, and weapons, using them for 1/2 the durability and only uses 1/2 of the sanity loss (exception is Dark Sword and Night Armor). For amulets and wearables, all of them will lose durability at 1/2 of the rate of other character (life giving amulet will still break upon using a revive). Finally, if you refuel a item with Nightmare fuel, it will be refueled with 2x efficiency.

New Cinematic and Skins

Spoiler

I have seen a trend in the reworks where there will be a new skin along with 2-3 item skins. There will also be a new cinematic that will tell something about the character's past. For Maxwell, we already know a lot about his past in the human world, but we know jack about his reign as the king of the constant. So I think the short will show him from the moment he entered the constant, how he learned and used his powers and how the shadows affected him, how he discovered the ancient's pasts, what They are, and how he became the bored tyrant he had, until Wilson he discovered away of communication with the outside world. It would help build on the lore of the constant and would also improve on his backstory, it would fit perfectly to reveal some lore with the character who ruled the world for potential eons. As for the character skin, The Imprisoned King. It would show him in the state he was in at the end of adventure in with his pointy shoes, white gown, and white hair. the only difference would be broken-off shadow hands around his wrists. It fits his past and would be a neat reference like his survivor skin quote. For the item skins, there will be 3. 1) The Dark Sword will be made into a more rapier like design 2) The Hibearnation Vest will be his coat seen on Maxwell after the 1st world in Adventure mode 3) The Codex Umbra in a more Thulucite/orange color with the symbol for Thulucite from the Metheus puzzle in purple. The item skins are also suppose to be references, the coat from adventure mode, book from the Metheus puzzle/How ancient it is, and how he finds the cutlass a "Gentlemen's weapons" (It isn't skinned a cutlass as the Dark Sword still looks like a cutlass). But now, we end this very long post.

Conclusion

After writing all this out, I will have to admit something. I don't think that my ideas are all that plausible to be added to the game. My rework is a bit to advanced and it would require a lot of work to be completed. The reason I wrote this out is to show the potential that Maxwell can achieve. I believe that he can and will be more then a resource gatherer, but I didn't know how to do that without going into the deep end of "new". Thank you to anybody who reads this, comment on how you like/hate/would change it, and have a nice day/night.

[CactusCompanion]

cool ideas

[Ornge]

No real problem with some of these, but in no way is he outclassed by forest stalker. 3 choppers and 1 digger can destroy a forest.

1 hour ago, Frashaw27 said:

 

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Boulders comeback at a snails pace, 

 

 

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How is that an argument for why MAXWELL is outclassed at gathering rocks. Change the meteor rate not maxwell

 

The torn suit thing seems very pointless to me. It will just turn one of his upsides into a downside for no real reason.You even said the dapperness perk isn't very useful so why nerf it at all

[Frashaw27]

22 minutes ago, Ornge said:

The torn suit thing seems very pointless to me. It will just turn one of his upsides into a downside for no real reason.You even said the dapperness perk isn't very useful so why nerf it at all

Sorry, my bad. I forgot that with the taterred suit that it would be the rate we have now, 6.67 s/min. sorry, I forgot.

EDIT: For some more explanation

:

Quote

 Boulders comeback at a snails pace

I will admit that this was a rather bad reasoning but the reason why I mentioned it is that outside of petrified trees, which is apparently random chance when it will happen, once all the boulders have been mined up, it really isn't worth it to summon the miners until the petrified trees spawn again, which means that those puppets are more rarely used. I still admit that I could have used a better quote.

30 minutes ago, Ornge said:

no way is he outclassed by forest stalker. 3 choppers and 1 digger can destroy a forest.

Also bad explanation, but I still do feel as if this one does ring true in some respect. I feel as though its more of a end game thing, but it is dependent on the amount of trees you want to chop down. If you have a forest of trees, Waxwell is your guy, if you have like 30 trees, then its much more time efficient to use a Forest Stalker then to use Maxwell to chop down the 30 trees and switch back. I will still admit that the amount of trees does matter and I was a idiot for not including it.

[Maxposting]

To be honest, maxwell is very op, right @Lakurius?

[Thomas Die]

i don't want to break it to you or anything but i think maxwell will probably coming out late in the rework along with wes because of how much lore they can hold 

[minespatch]

i'm curious if we'll get either snowfallen MAxwell or "throned" king maxwell with how we saw him on the nightmare throne.

[Canis]

2 hours ago, minespatch said:

i'm curious if we'll get either snowfallen MAxwell or "throned" king maxwell with how we saw him on the nightmare throne.

Honestly, I just want Adventure mode Maxwell with his big fluffy coat.

[Frashaw27]

6 hours ago, thomas4845 said:

i don't want to break it to you or anything but i think maxwell will probably coming out late in the rework along with wes because of how much lore they can hold 

I didn't think that the Maxwell rework would be the next one or even some time soon. the only reason why I posted this is to present my ideas to the community and to finally dump them from my mind.

[minespatch]

2 hours ago, Canis said:

big fluffy coat.

The outfit he's wearing on the throne looks like a disheveled version of the same coat.

[Sinister_Fang]

12 hours ago, Frashaw27 said:

Once you get your hands on a sewing kit you can use it to repair your suit. 

-snip-

As one last thing, he can't repair his suit as "Quality goods require quality tools!"

So he can or can't repair his suit? If he can't repair his suit, then all of this would be meaningless. Could you clarify that last part? It really doesn't make any sense.

12 hours ago, Frashaw27 said:

1) All puppets can use their gold version of their respective tools (Battle Spear for Duelists)

This literally does nothing (with the exception of the battle spear). Gold tools only have twice the durability of flint tools, but shadows already have unlimited durability. Unless you're proposing to have the shadows use up durability? If that's the case, then it removes a lot of the utility of the puppets.

[Frashaw27]

1 minute ago, Sinister_Fang said:

So he can or can't repair his suit? If he can't repair his suit, then all of this would be meaningless. Could you clarify that last part? It really doesn't make any sense.

So I will addendum this in a edit, but I was tired and forgot to put that Winona's duct tape can't be used to fix the suit. My bad.

2 minutes ago, Sinister_Fang said:

This literally does nothing (with the exception of the battle spear). Gold tools only have twice the durability of flint tools, but shadows already have unlimited durability. Unless you're proposing to have the shadows use up durability? If that's the case, then it removes a lot of the utility of the puppets.

You can use the gold tools while crafting, thats it. The reason for that change is that with the mountin of gold that you can get from the ruins/tumbleweed raiding, It just seemed like a good change to allow the puppets to be summoned with the gold tools. But As I said, I will be making edits shortly.

[Sinister_Fang]

Just now, Frashaw27 said:

You can use the gold tools while crafting, thats it. The reason for that change is that with the mountin of gold that you can get from the ruins/tumbleweed raiding, It just seemed like a good change to allow the puppets to be summoned with the gold tools. But As I said, I will be making edits shortly.

Oh. Well what's up with the battle spear then? It makes duelists literally unusable without having a Wigfrid around.

[Frashaw27]

Just now, Sinister_Fang said:

Oh. Well what's up with the battle spear then? It makes duelists literally unusable without having a Wigfrid around.

I mentioned it because it is the gold version of the spear, you can still you it but I thought that people wouldn't know what gold tool I was referring to with the duelist.

[Ezaroth]

How about make his suit an equipment (only he can wear), then give him a backpack puppet that acts like Chester.