Woodie Rework Proposal

[blacknight7890]

On 7/25/2019 at 1:29 PM, JoeW said:

What's next?

Next on the list of Character Refreshes is somebody we think many of you are going to be excited about. We are having a bunch of fun with this one and we hope you enjoy Woodie when his refresh comes to DST early September. 

(tl;dr in the form of a changelog at the bottom.)

So as we can see, soon Woodie will get his long awaited rework, but what should that rework entail?

With warly's working buff seasoning, Woodie is in a better place than he was ^{two chops} but he still needs some changes of his own. As he is a lumberjack, through and through we should focus on his wood chopping ability. I think he should have other abilities that help the team more than just having a lot of wood, but his logging is first and foremost.

#1) Wood Chopping

To really help the team, and be the #1 wood gatherer, he needs something that is better then just speed, something better than chopping multiple trees at once or felling whole forests with giants. To really be the best, I believe Woodie needs to get more wood per tree than anyone, or anything else. If he could gain double the wood per tree, then it doesn't matter how fast other methods are, they will still not get as much wood as Woodie can for the same amount of trees. Of course Woodie should still be fast, no doubt about that, but if, say, logging methods A, B, and C, all get 100 logs with different speeds and costs, but method D (Woodie) get 200 logs, then speed isn't as big of a factor as it is for the others.

With this buff, we can finally lay to rest the debate between Woodie and Maxwell, because no matter how many shadow clones max has, he will inevitably get less logs total then Woodie wood.

#2) Bonus Stuff

In addition, we could also give Woodie some sanity when felling trees. like a reverse form of Wormwood, with +15 sanity instead of -15 sanity

Hmm, could probably keep his follower bonus, the pigs can help with chopping.

And, uh, the sanity gained from planting trees can stay, don't see why not.

And... uh... his beard still has insulation, so ...

...Uh

...

... Sigh

There's no putting it off. 

If I am to do a post about Woodie, I have to talk about his other half. I will have to tackle, It.

#3) The Curse

Oh boy here we go. The Werebeaver is a, complicated topic. I will not lie to you dear reader, I do not believe I am qualified to talk about this topic, but I'll try my best. first off, lets get some common ground to ensure there is no miscommunication, as I'm sure few of you have actually played with the Werebeaver enough to actually understand it, me included.

(Info under the cut, no one like a block of text, also almost entirely quoting the wiki here)

Spoiler

 

In Don't Starve Together (DST), Woodie becomes the Werebeaver when his Beaverness (the log meter) reaches 25 points or lower, or if it is a full Moon. The Hunger meter will disappear and be replaced by the Beaverness Meter. Woodie and the Werebeaver share an inventory, Sanity, and Health, meaning the Werebeaver can go insane and die. While the inventory's shared, the Werebeaver will drop equipped items except Backpacks and can't see or use anything in the inventory.

The Werebeaver is able to chop down Trees, dig, mine, demolish Structures, and fight Mobs, but otherwise can't interact with objects in any other way. He has limited night vision and as such is immune to the Night Monster. The Werebeaver's attack does 27.2 damage (44.2 to trees) but blocks only 25% of damage, leaving him vulnerable. They also have 240 insulation for both heat and cold, are 70% Water Proof, and they have a 1.1x speed modifier.

The Beaverness Meter has a value of 100 points and will decay at a rate of 1.875 beaverness every minute. If it reaches 0, the Werebeaver will start to lose health the same way Characters do when starving. To keep the meter up the Werebeaver must consume various wood or wood like items. Also, every hit to all objects (except Mobs) will restore 1 beaverness. If the player fills the Beaverness to 100, Woodie will turn back into a human.

Living logs give 50 beaverness, boards give 15, logs give 10, twigs give 5, and grass/reeds give 1.

The Werebeaver Sanity depletes by 90 points every minute, meaning he can go insane very quickly after turning a few times. Dying as the Werebeaver will cause Woodie to drop everything (as usual for all Characters) and turn into a Ghost that resembles the Werebeaver instead of Woodie. If he is resurrected, he'll revive with 25 Beaverness, 50 Health, and 100 Sanity.

During a full Moon Woodie will instantly turn into the Werebeaver, but for the duration of the full Moon his Beaverness will drain extremely fast at 75 points per minute, which forces the player to restore it quickly or else the Werebeaver will starve and take damage. After the full Moon is over the Beaverness will stop draining rapidly and everything will return to normal.

Now those are the facts, and I will be using them for the rest of this post. So now that we know this, let's go down the list of problems

1. No ability to self heal.
2. Rapid sanity loss.
3. Bad fighter.
4. Can't interact with structures.
5. Transforming is inevitable with the beaverness meter's passive drain.
6. You drop valuable equipped items when you transform.
7. Since the transformation starts at 25 beaverness, the meter is misleading.
8. Inability to deal with temperature.
9. In general, it's a high risk, low reward transformation..

All you really get from it, is mad chops. You can chop through trees hella fast, but with how frequent you will transform, that's not enough. If we were to categorize the things needed to fix the transformation into a few broad categories, they would be as follows:

• A way to heal yourself without needing outside assistance.
• A way to deal with temperature 
• Can use some structures like gates or toggle things like flingomatics.
• Make the beaverness meter easier to understand
• A way to mitigate, or at least control the sanity loss
• Be good in combat.
• Keep dropped items safe during and after the transformation
• A way to avoid transformation without eating.

But with this we also need to make sure we don't make it too strong, lest it become unbalanced, or even overpowered, it is a curse after all. So while we think of solutions, we need to keep in mind balance.

• A way to heal yourself without needing outside assistance.

Simple one first, just have any gain to the beaverness meter also heal you by half that amount, should keep you alive.

• A way to deal with temperature.

Since you can't make fires at all while transformed, seasons are a big issue. You can't heat up or cool down yourself as a Werebeaver without outside help or existing structures. So I believe doing what the form did originally is best, temperature immunity. While transformed you are immune to the effects of temperature, you cannot overheat or freeze, your temperature will still change, but you won't feel the effects of it until you change back. The change will cap to just before freezing and just before overheating, so you're temperature doesn't get too out of whack, but there is still consequences.

• Can use some structures like gates or toggle things like flingomatics.

This is as simple as allowing the beaver to use them, as you may need to turn a flingo on to stop your base from burning down, or open and close a gate to make sure you don't lose any livestock.

• Make the beaverness meter easier to understand

Bit odder but should be easy, just have the meter only transform you when you reach 0 beaverness, but you gain 25 beaverness when you transform, so you still have that buffer, but you also get to be Woodie longer, and you will actually know when you will transform with absolute certainty.

• A way to mitigate, or at least control the sanity loss

I think the sanity loss should be tied into the percentage of the beaverness meter, so if the meter is low, then the drain is very fast, but if its high then its very low. You could see this as Woodie regaining control, so his brain takes less of a hit. Or something. Regaining beavernes would also heal your sanity by half the gained amount.

• Be good both offensively and defensively in combat.

One idea is just a straight up buff. Damage should be increased to 51(68 against wood), so, tentacle spike level normally. Damage absorbed should be increased to 80%, like a log suit, simple. These combat buffs already make him far better at combat then ever before, and they are pretty early game, so it's not that unrealistic. Of course, as a Werebeaver, you will hit a lot faster than others, so you get some mad damage per second with it. This won't be anything spectacular later in the game, but it should allow you to hold your own when beavered up earlier in the game.

Another, much better solution, is to have the damage and defence rise the lower you're beaverness meter is. This would allow you to get some mad damage and defence as the beaver, but only when you are close to starving as the beaver. This would also help with the risk vs reward thing, higher risk, better reward. At 90%+ beaverness your deal 17 damage (27.2 to wood) and block 25% of all incoming damage. At 10%- beaverness, you deal 68 damage (102 to wood) and block 90% of all incoming damage. This makes using the Werebeaver a more interesting experience, you could start chomping on trees to keep your sanity  from getting too bad, or let yourself take the sanity hit and risk starvation for some mad damage. A nice risk vs reward.

• Keep dropped items safe during and after the transformation

Could solve this with a simple bag that drops when you transform, the bag is fireproof and shows on the map, so you don't need to worry about losing anything. It only stores things that you drop as the Werebeaver upon transformation, dying as the Werebeaver still drops your items onto the floor as usual. This does not act like a bundling wrap, it's more of a backpack kind of pack, you cannot access its inventory like a chest, you can only open it like a wrap or klaus gift, so everything drops out when opened.

• A way to avoid transformation without eating.

When you want to stay as Woodie, currently you are forced to eat wooden things in order to stave it off, this not only uses up valuable resources, but is also frustrating. I propose that instead of a passive drain of the meter, when you are Woodie the meter will actually passively regenerate, like how in single player don't starve you can avoid the transformation by not chopping for a while. If we do the same here, I think it should help give the player a lot more control and lets them keep the wood they have gathered instead of eating it. They can still eat it to fill the meter up way faster should they want to continue chopping, but it's no longer a requirement.

 

And with this, I believe all the major issues have been covered. I do think that the Werebeaver shouldn't be able to use the inventory still, as it seems like a fair downside. I firmly believe that if these were implemented, then the Werebeaver, and by extension Woodie, would be far better in the game.

For ease of reading, I will put everything I propose down below in the form of a dev-like changelog, so you can quote that for your rants on how im wrong instead of my 10,000 words above.

Woodie's suggested rework changelog:

• Trees chopped by Woodie or The Werebeaver give double the log yield (small-2, medium-4, large-6)
• Trees felled give +15 sanity to the Woodie who chopped it. This does not work as the Werebeaver.
• The Werebeaver has been majorly reworked to be more viable and gives more reward for risky play.
• The beaverness meter only transforms you when it hits 0, when you transform you gain an initial +25 to the meter.
• When transformed, any gain to the beaverness meter also gives half the gain to health and sanity. (Example: +10 points to the meter also add +5 to health and sanity)
• When transformed, Woodie is immune to the effects of overheating and freezing, their temperature will still change, but will stop changing before it reaches these extremes.
• When transformed, your sanity will drain inversely proportional to the beaverness meter. (At 90 and above, sanity drains at 10 per minute, at 10 and below sanity drains at 90 per minute)
• When transformed, you can still toggle structures on and off, in addition to being able to open and close gates.
• When transformed, damage and armor is inversely proportional to the beaverness meter (90%+ beaverness: 17 damage (27.2 to wood) and 25% armor. At 10%- beaverness: 68 damage (102 to wood) and 90% armor.)
• When transformed, dropped items will be placed into a bag, the bag acts like a fireproof wrap but does not preserve the items inside, it cannot be picked up and when opened will spill out all items inside. Shows on the map.
• As Woodie, you regen the beaverness meter by 2 per minute instead of draining it by 2 per minute, it still drains by 1.875 per minute as the Werebeaver however.

 

This is my wish list for the rework, I want to hear what you all think of this, mostly because I want this to be the best it can be and to do that I need your input. Please be nice.

[Swanky Psammead]

I'm paraphrasing Lakurion / Lakurius here a bit, but point stands regardless:

Maxwell's strength as a wood gatherer is not just in his shadows' logging speed; his real strength is his ability to collect logs and chop them simultaneously, in one phase. The fact that characters cannot pick up more than a couple logs per second means that you get diminishing returns from increasing the rate at which trees are felled / logs are dropped beyond a certain point. Bearger and certain other giants can break trees down much faster than Woodie or Maxwell, but using Bearger means that the processes of chopping and collecting the wood must be divided even further, because it's not safe to collect the wood while Bearger is stomping.

Maxwell is not the fastest logger in the game, but he is the fastest log collector because his shadows can generate logs slightly faster than Maxwell can pick them up. This means Maxwell can hold the spacebar while his shadows are working and steadily collect about ~2 logs per second indefinitely. Since all other characters, including Woodie, have to separate chopping the wood and collecting the wood into two different phases, I think giving Woodie more logs from each tree would be redundant. If Woodie could somehow extract 40 logs from a single tree, and chop that single tree in just one second, he would still need another ~20 seconds to pick the logs up, which means Maxwell would still finish the job one second faster.

If Woodie is going to be competitive with Maxwell, I think he needs a buff of a different nature entirely, like the ability to grab 2 nearby logs/cones/twigs with one pickup animation.

[blacknight7890]

19 minutes ago, Swanky Psammead said:

I'm paraphrasing Lakurion / Lakurius here a bit, but point stands regardless:

Maxwell's strength as a wood gatherer is not just in his shadows' logging speed; his real strength is his ability to collect logs and chop them simultaneously, in one phase. The fact that characters cannot pick up more than a couple logs per second means that you get diminishing returns from increasing the rate at which trees are felled / logs are dropped beyond a certain point. Bearger and certain other giants can break trees down much faster than Woodie or Maxwell, but using Bearger means that the processes of chopping and collecting the wood must be divided even further, because it's not safe to collect the wood while Bearger is stomping.

Maxwell is not the fastest logger in the game, but he is the fastest log collector because his shadows can generate logs slightly faster than Maxwell can pick them up. This means Maxwell can hold the spacebar while his shadows are working and steadily collect about ~2 logs per second indefinitely. Since all other characters, including Woodie, have to separate chopping the wood and collecting the wood into two different phases, I think giving Woodie more logs from each tree would be redundant. If Woodie could somehow extract 40 logs from a single tree, and chop that single tree in just one second, he would still need another ~20 seconds to pick the logs up, which means Maxwell would still finish the job one second faster.

If Woodie is going to be competitive with Maxwell, I think he needs a buff of a different nature entirely, like the ability to grab 2 nearby logs/cones/twigs with one pickup animation.

That's actually a pretty good point, I hadn't considered how long it takes to actually pick up the stuff. But even then, maybe having woodie somehow beat maxwell isn't what we need to focus on, I think with the extra logs, speed isn't as big of an issue since the two are actually different in their approach, with one getting more per tree, while the other one gets more trees at once, just having something other than speed to compare them with is leagues better than what its like now.

[Luiv]

At start I'm sorry for my bad english. One person on discord gave an idea to add Woodie syrup from The Gorge. Because Woodie is from Canada Klei could add tapping kits, sap and sugar trees from The Gorge event. Woodie could cook from surup new Woodie only dishes or it could be new kind of seasoning. Also eating Syroup could fill his log meter. I think syrup may be one of his greatest feature. This idea could seem like recycling from the gorge but I think it could make from woodie more helpful character. This is a fast reflection on this feature. Klei did a good job of refreshing Winona, Willow, Wormwood and Warly, so I think Woodie will be great character. What do you think about this idea, I understand that you could disagree with me, that's normal. 

 

[igrackove]

Hello,

I agree with your post expect with some things...

Werebeaver is not a bad fighter, he is really good at fighting because of his fast attacks and decent damage.

Rapid sanity decrease is not a issue either because it makes you able to farm nightmare fuel by killing alot of Nightmares, this connects with the fact that Werebeaver is a great fighter. The nightmare fuel farming also connects with the fact that Werebeaver does higher damage to trees (47.5)

So by that it's more easier to kill Tree guards to gain living log with which you can craft Dark sword, Shadow manipulator and much more.

I really like the beaverness mechanic that you are talking here about. 

Sorry if I am wrong. I am telling this from my experience with woodie, he is really good at farming nightmare fuel  and fighting...

Have a great day <3 I love you

Good post and good job