[Poll] Your requests for Woodie's Update

[Viktor234]

I took some time to collect other players suggestions etc. about Woodie's update and made a poll to ask you for your wishes about Woodies update.

 

I'd also like to share some of my thoughts about Woodie.

My guess for his lore:

Spoiler

Woodie came most likely as a normal character into the constant, he had an axe but it wasn't able to talk yet. He settled down in the single MacTusk area and lived together with some foolish pigs doing this work for him. He placed traps to feed himself with almost anything, and chopped logs daily to keep his Fire Pit alive. But one day he discovered the Moonstone (perhaps it dropped from the sky and he came to inspect it). But once he came closer, the full moon appeared and turned all the pigs nearby into Werepigs. Woodie managed to defend himself with his axe till the event ended. He got hurt by the pigs but suddenly the pigs, flowers & rabbits turned into idols, carrots turned into carrats (& got eaten quickly), trees turned into Treeguards. And his axe got the ability to speak, so Woodie named her Lucy (Shining light), but shortly afterwards Woodie turned into a Werebeaver and started to gnaw down the whole area.

Back in DS, Woodie could use the Logs he gathered to keep his Werebeaver form as long as possible: Fighting mobs or "miming" tools by using logs only. But in DST his Werebeaver form became mostly useless: Deals as much damage as an axe, can tank only 200 damage and can't heal himself as Werebeaver. And Woodie does not have any need for the logs he chops: Beaverness is restored by gnawing anything; Woodie has no additional use for the logs. The only reason I see to chop trees is mostly just to avoid transforming into a Werebeaver (which causes a high sanity drain) or to share the chopped logs with your friends.

Unlike Maxwell, Woodie is only capable to gather alot of Logs quickly. Mining Rocks takes alot of time and turns the Werebeaver in most cases back to his Human form. Maxwell can use his shadows 24/7 (if they don't get killed by rocks or mobs), he's able to collect items while gathering and doesn't need to take breaks while harvesting. Woodie needs to gnaw logs to keep his human form or plant Pinecones / fight Shadows to restore his sanity. Working while being insane isn't effective cause you're forced to run away from the shadows or fight against them, which will keep you away from doing your work.

Right now Woodie is not really dependent on Logs (Unless you want to avoid turning into a Werebeaver) but rather on Pinecones to handle his sanity. But that ability also became way less unique with the introduction of Wormwood, who also gains Sanity per planted Pinecone to compensate his insanity from chopping trees. Wormwood really cares for his forest while Woodie needs the Logs to handle his Werebeaver form.

I don't see any need for Woodie's ability to get a higher loyality time when hiring followers. He already chops faster than most other characters, making it mostly useless to hire Pigs for chopping trees.

Whenever Woodie turns into a Werebeaver, he gains some good options:

• His Werebeaver form takes only 20% of the daily hunger which allows him to survive for about 6.6 days without eating anything. Becoming hungry is almost impossible since you can restore it via gnawing anything. (1.5 Logs per day in DST; 38.4 Logs per day in DS)
• Night Vision allows you to see without any troubles during night: You'll be able to avoid any kind of trap & you won't miss anything because nothing will be covered in complete darkness as Werebeaver.
• Nightmares aren't a real problem as long as you keep running, the +10% Movement Speed allows you to dodge their attacks a bit easier. The only case where Shadows might hurt you is if you're doing any task (fighting mobs, restoring Log-Meter) or if you're surrounded by shadows.

All these abilities turn Woodie into a good explorer who can use his Transformation to scout the whole map for free, as long as it's not too cold or too hot which is the case during Autumn.

But watch out not to die as Werebeaver in locations like the ruins. Dying as Werebeaver in the ruins is in most cases a gg. You'll loose your Night Vision and you won't be able to open your map even as a Werebeaver Ghost. Due to your extremly low vision, you'll have a pretty hard time to find the way back to your teammates or a Touchstone.

Another hidden feature I like but is more likely considered as a bug, is Woodie's ability to distinguish hidden Depths Worms from Lesser Glow Berries. Woodie has a quote for the Depths Worm but there's no quote listed in the script for the Lesser Glow Berry, so he uses Wilson's quote instead, result:

Spoiler

Woodie examining a Depths Worm:

Woodie examining a Lesser Glow Berry:

Any other character:

This feature is actually not that useful anymore because every hidden Depths Worm is always marked as Wet and exploring caves during Winter or Spring is already pretty dangerous because of rain.

I like the fact that Woodie has some kind of improved scouting abilities, but right now these abilities are only used to scout the caves/ruins once and to swap the character after scouting, because his scouting abilities become useless once he explored the whole map. If Wagstaff (who's most likely the DS version of Winona) won't be implemented into DST, I'd suggest to move Wagstaff's ability to see traps to Woodie's ability, this includes:

• Tentacles (Useful to farm reeds in earlygame to make maps for your allies)
• Treeguards (To chop trees in peace or to use the Treeguards against other mobs)
• Depths Worms (Already included)
• (Plants which are about to disease (A reason to keep a Woodie in your base))
• (The mob at the end of a suspicious dirt pile)
• (Incoming earthquakes & hound waves (Allows him to change his form before the hounds arrive))

Woodie is a Lumberjack not because he's a gatherer but because he needs Logs to survive. Also his scouting skills should be more highlighted, he already has a pretty nice but not yet published vignette showing him as a Canadian scout:

Spoiler

Old ideas:

Spoiler

Due to his look and the fact that he's canadian who are known to catch their food with traps, he could also become some sort of a Trapper & get the access to new kind of traps, for example:
Tooth Traps which apply different debuffs to the target, similar to Blow Darts. (Fire trap excluded: Deals almost 0 damage & hurts the environment)
A leghold trap made out of Hound's Tooth.
Or a Wood Gate which can be triggered from a different spot or as soon as the first mob runs through it, making it easier to trap mobs.
While hiding in the Bush Hat, Woodie gets the ability to move slowly without being noticed. It can be used to get the 1st hit on a shy mob (Koalefant, Volt Goats, MacTusk; it will replace the need for making Lucy throwable), or to dodge a hound wave without using any traps. You'll be able to take a dangerous path either hidden or with all the dangers revealed as Werebeaver. But there's almost no area where you can't take a longer path & need to sneak across, except in the ruins during nightmare phase. To make this ability more available, bushes near Moonstone area should always be normal berries, not Juicy Berries.

His traps should be triggerable by Rabbits, Moles and Birds. That would give a hint why Woodie dislikes them.

 

[Canis]

All of my ideas were mentioned here, so I won't repeat myself like a broken record.

[trinket_4]

I think I'm the only one who enjoy the +5 sanity per pine cone planted. This thing is a life saver when transforming back to human form and you have 0 sanity and 2 terrorbeaks ready to eat your body.

 

1 hour ago, Canis said:

All of my ideas were mentioned here, so I won't repeat myself like a broken record.

Same

[Brago-sama]

Such creativity. I love all of these ideas.

[FreyaMaluk]

Nice compilation of most suggestions for Woodie's rework. Gj @Viktor234

 

[Frashaw27]

Tbh I feel like Lucy should also get some reworks too. Lucy in her current form leaves much to be desired. Its a axe, and she is a great axe but she becomes actually useless when not choping. Adding to ability to throw her would be uniqe but it wouldn't really change things up. There is barely any mobs you need to take out with range attacks and with Lucy, it would be more efficent to hit them to death. So what if we gave her the ability to be a multi tool? This would give her a wide range of uses as well as being able to reduce the amount of kit you need/want to take with you. Adding parts would be a simple as hovering the part over Lucy and attaching it. You can also swap them out with the same method. There could only be 1 part in the hilt, axe blade, and additional tool head. Any tool parts added will not get the efficentcy bonus that Lucy has, bit the will be un breakable. Without further ado, lets see my parts suggestions:

-Pickaxe Head

-Shovel Head

-Depthed Pickaxe Head: Shovel and Pickaxe Heads

-Hamaxe Head: Hammer

-Pitchfork Head

-Axe Head: Gives Lucy 2 axe blades, thus making her a battle axe. Deals 45 damage but doesn't improve axe abilities.

-Golden Axe Blade: Reduces Log meter gain/drain per chop

-Moon Glass Axe Blade: Improves Chopping abilities but will break after 150 chops. Breaking it will leave Lucy with no blade

-Flint Axe Blade: Standard Licy Blade

-Living Log Hilt: Sanity drain, higher log meter drain/gain, improved treeguard chance, but goves you double rewards from harvesting.

-Walking Can Hilt: +25 speed

Thats it. The point of this was to show that Lucy can have more potential and can be a lot more useful then axe or boomerang. I do fully think she should be given more focus then "what if we had the ability to throw her?"

[WoodieMain45684]

Other: Woodie could use an ability that makes picking up the logs after they are done chopping easier. One of the longest parts of lumberjacking (and one of the most boring parts) is holding space to pick up all the wood. Even if you use bearger to chop down all of your trees, it will still be worthwhile to use Woodie as a lumberjack role if he can pick it up faster.

Examples: Logs go strait into woodie's and/or werebeaver's inventory after chopping, Logs autostack from trees felled by or near Woodie, lucy could hop along the ground while Woodie is in beaver mode and toss logs into stacks while he gnaws, Woodie could have an AOE pickup that picks up all the logs near him instead of one at a time, Woodie can carry a stack of 40 logs. The list goes on and on and on and on...

[cantdeletethis]

I remember someone suggesting about woodie's wood crafting station perk

obviously chair/table & maybe better campfire? both decoration and little sanity perk would do it

[Dr. Safety]

26 minutes ago, Frashaw27 said:

>snip about making Lucy have different abilities

I honestly love all of these ideas. Woodie should be able to rival Maxwell and with Maxwell able to gather everything, so should Woodie.

1 hour ago, trinket_4 said:

I think I'm the only one who enjoy the +5 sanity per pine cone planted.

I am with you there. I like him being able to manage sanity better.

 

I guess ultimately I want the werebeaver to be able to swim and I wish for Woodie to have to do a LOT more chopping before transforming. One of my least favorite parts of playing as him is how often he has to eat the product his character is supposed to be the best at gathering. Faster chopping speed and less chops doesn't mean anything if half of the resources go towards making you not become a beaver. I'm not against the mechanic of eating logs to prevent transformation but how much you have to eat and how fast you can transform from chopping is a little absurd.

Also I think the werebeaver should have some special abilities at the cost of the log meter. For instance the tail smack that uproots trees (similar to the thumper) should cost 25 units of the log meter, meaning that spamming these abilities could lead to starvation. Other abilities might include carrying players/objects, somehow automatically picking up logs in the area, etc. Also what if logs healed you, and would only increase log meter if health is full (as werebeaver, not Woodie). 

If I had to sum up my thoughts in a few words, its make the beaver able to swim, and make the werebeaver a log guzzler, not woodie.

[maradyne]

Nice compilation of ideas, seems like this covers most of what's been suggested by the community.

I'm a fan of the ideas that give him more ways to manage Beaverness and make use of the Werebeaver without the form basically being a penalty for trying to play Woodie as a wood gatherer, like it currently feels.
I also really like his current fringe perks (natural insulation and follower time buff), because they mesh well with his personality. I feel like they could be integrated alongside woodcutting/werebeaver changes without him ending up too strong.

That idea about him being vulnerable to Summer is a perfect fit. He's a woodsman of the frozen north; he'd fit as a seasonal opposite to Willow.

 

I specifically don't like the concept of Pigs/ect turning on him when he goes Werebeaver. They should be following Beaver Daddy on the tree-felling rampage as respectable members of society.

[Atkvin]

Some ideas I'll just leave here in no order!:

Woodie receives increased movement and a slow regeneration/damage boost at night at the cost of increased hunger/sanity drain at night - this reflects real life nocturnal nature of beavers and demonstrates his supernatural capabilities outside of Werebeaver (which always struck me as Klei's comical twist on a werewolf)

When Woodie has enough sanity, he will be able to throw Lucy at the cost of hunger (Lucy refuses to be chucked for the safety of Woodie and other survivors otherwise). Upon striking a tree, Lucy will stay hooked onto it (leaving a notch in the tree if recovered) leaving the tree standing with only one finishing blow to fell it by any axe/pig. While the hunger drain to chop a tree may not be worth this technique, this allows Woodie to save on depleting his Woodiness meter in exchange (especially with allies/teammates around helping to finish them!) and also make Woodie invaluable in felling Poison Birchnut Trees - should he be able to find an opening through the tiny birchnuts and tentacles - which can be left standing with only one/a few axe swings through this technique. Treeguards are not affected similarly.

Additionally, to make Woodie more effective in combat, should Lucy strike an enemy when thrown, should they not be killed immediately by the iniital blow, she will stay hooked into them and bleed them - not causing damage over time, but rather simply amplifying damage on the target from all sources momentarily, making her a single-target shredder in contrast to Abigail's aoe that supports Woodie and other characters in battle. Lucy will immediately be shaken off by a Giant's next attack or the target disappearing, or otherwise, a random number of hits from the player/damage sources.

Lastly, the Werebeaver will be able to pick up Lucy in its mouth and carry her around to stop/severely reduce sanity drain, but in exchange be unable to gnaw anything until she is dropped, extending the control players have over the Werebeaver form.

(I'm sure a few of these suggestions are at least a bit OP, especially put together, but these were just my thoughts as a former Woodie main on how I'd improve his base gameplay - however none of these really solve the problem that he doesn't contribute much late-game since my ideas focus on his scouting skill, combat support against weaker enemies and making the Werebeaver less annoying. To make him more fun, interesting and valuable to a team I guess more drastic measures would need to be taken to change him up)

[PunkShark]

I had this funny idea of what Woodie's lore could be. lets say he got the *canadian curse* which is the reason why he's a such a stereotype, he grew a "beard" and became ginger (and since Kevin actually stated that the beard may not be even made out hair. which is really odd). and it would also make sense because of Lucy, for you see..

Every 'Canadian' has a werebeaver curse and a talking axe . its just facts eh?

perhaps canadians aren't humans.. but a different race of beavers, disguising as us.

 

i'mma need my tinfoil hat for this one.

 

 

 

i honestly have no clue what the hell Woodie's story is, i can't wait for this mystery to be solved

[AlternateMew]

Well, with RoT having just come out and seeing that swimming suggestion, I will now be disappointed if Werebeaver cannot swim. The timing is perfect to have the most logical swimmer gain that ability.

And for the love of something lovable, please let him access the map when transformed.

[I_Link_I]

Picking up logs is anoying so i suggest this:

The lumberbag.

Unique Crafting for Woody.

 backpack +living log

Stays on  when turning into braver.

As big as piggybag(maybe even krampus?)but can only Bild wood.

AUTOCOLECTS ALL WOOD FROM CHOPED TREES!

(it just doesn't drop from you but if other farm with you theirs will still drop normaly(cones/seeds unafected)

[Viktor234]

Some analysis to the poll (83 Players have voted so far with one Player voting nothing everywhere):

Woodie's triggering of his transformation:

• A majority of 70% of the players want to keep it the way it is: Woodie should trigger his transformation by chopping enough trees.
• About 24% would like to see an alternative way for it.
• 6% couldn't decide.

Note: I know that many players will dislike it if Woodie's Werebeaver Transformation is triggered by insanity (because many players didn't want to see Willow freezing when she's insane), yet I decided to keep that choice in the poll.

His actual abilities besides his transformation:

• 38% voted to remove his additional Loyality time and to replace it with any other ability.
• 17% suggest that he shouldn't get any sanity from planting pinecones.
• 16% don't want to keep Woodie's beard insulation for the winter.

The improvement of his lumberjack abilities: Should Woodie gain +1 Log & leave the stump or gain the +1 log by instantly digging up the stump upon gnawing a tree? His performance for gathering logs depends on: 'Logs per Tree' (L) divided by 'Time to completely chop a tree' (T)

• 30% of the Voters want to see the Werebeaver to dig up the Tree instantly upon gnawing and grant +1 Log upon gnawing, resulting in +2 Logs per gnawed tree (L + 1; T - 1), making Woodie's ability to chop trees alot better than Maxwell's ability
• 32% want to see Woodie producing +1 Log upon chopping any kind of tree, but leaving the stump behind, which can be dug up later on or just be left behind (L + 1): They're willing to work longer to get more logs from a fixed number of trees.
• 13% are satisfied if the +1 Log is granted from the stump (T - 1) as they won't need to dig up the stump later on and save time upon gnawing trees
• 24% did not vote for any changes

Other voting statistics:

• About 78% want to see Woodie being able to swim when turning into a Werebeaver
• In sorts of penalties, players want to see him getting his in the poll mentioned DS penalties back
• Boomerang Lucy appears not to be as impressive as abilities to collect logs more easily

Thank you all for your votes!

[FeagleSnorf]

OH MY GOD YES DAMS THATS ALL I WANT, ALL THE TIME.

You probably didn’t get that from my dam topic tho, but still good to see dams!

[Viktor234]

4 minutes ago, FeagleSnorf said:

OH MY GOD YES DAMS THATS ALL I WANT, ALL THE TIME.

You probably didn’t get that from my dam topic tho, but still good to see dams!

I tried to include most of the things I could find in other topics.

[x0-VERSUS-1y]

3 hours ago, Viktor234 said:

..In sorts of penalties, players want to see him getting his DS penalties back..

Imagine playing pubs, turning to beaver and suddenly dropping all your inventory. Can you guess what will happen next with them passer-byes seeing all your (soon-to-be-ex) stuff on ground?

And after that good luck when turning back to human form with only 1/3 of all your stats and no more any item at all! Bonus if close to night-time and/or in hostile environments.

[Viktor234]

1 hour ago, x0VERSUS1y said:

Imagine playing pubs, turning to beaver and suddenly dropping all your inventory. Can you guess what will happen next with them passer-byes seeing all your (soon-to-be-ex) stuff on ground?

Please tell me where did I mention this feature?

[Canis]

57 minutes ago, Viktor234 said:

Please tell me where did I mention this feature?

One very prominent DS Penalty is dropping your inventory upon transformation.

[Viktor234]

3 minutes ago, Canis said:

One very prominent DS Penalty is dropping your inventory upon transformation.

That's true, but I did not include that in my penalty list because I know that thieves excist. And so far 0 voted for the penalty to drop all the items upon transformation.

[Canis]

Just now, Viktor234 said:

That's true, but I did not include that in my penalty list because I know that thieves excist. And so far 0 voted for the penalty to drop all the items upon transformation.

@x0VERSUS1y was probably confused since you said "you want him getting his DS penalties back"

[x0-VERSUS-1y]

Not confused anything and no playing behind words: dropping inventory is part of DS Woodie global penalties.

Also the obligatory trashing of stats at 1/3 for myself is much more of an issue than the current beaver-sanity interaction: I have no problems kite-fighting shadows in beaver form, thus have no issue with nightmares manifesting during beaver phase. Yet I can't escape penalty-free from the stats trashing, no matter what, when I would wanna go beaver - I need to have healing and food afterwards. From me that's a no, ty!

[Viktor234]

1 hour ago, x0VERSUS1y said:

Not confused anything and no playing behind words: dropping inventory is part of DS Woodie global penalties.

Also the obligatory trashing of stats at 1/3 for myself is much more of an issue than the current beaver-sanity interaction: I have no problems kite-fighting shadows in beaver form, thus have no issue with nightmares manifesting during beaver phase. Yet I can't escape penalty-free from the stats trashing, no matter what, when I would wanna go beaver - I need to have healing and food afterwards. From me that's a no, ty!

Well, if you can't stand it... changed the text just for you, are you happy now?