[Woodie Rework] Hooman Woodie & Fully Lunar Lucy: A tale of Canadian Sham.

[Starphire]

Ever since I began playing Woodie, I was suspicious chopping with Lucy wasn't all it purported to be. Sure, you can chop faster and cut through more trees in the same time period than any other character wielding an axe only, but you have to eat a significant quantity of your harvest along the way to stay human. Seemed like it was more of a sham/ruse than what you'd expect a magical cursed axe to be able to execute. I soon learned that the real deal lay with werebeaver, as short and spectacularly perilous a chopping experience as that can be. Lucy was just the gateway (drug? lol) to trigger the werebeaver curse, where the real power (was supposed) to be unleashed.

So, in light of the Woodie rework, I decided to put Lucy to a race in a sustained human Woodie vs. any other character tree chop-athon to test just how true that impression was. I wrangled a friend to help, and we planted two lanes of pine cones (each 2 cones wide) off into the sunset. Wicker got 20 cones planted, and Woodie 40 cones. Wicker used some scholarly sorcery and fully matured the trees. We didn't bother stumping them as this was all about proving Lucy's tree-cutting prowess, so each tree harvested dropped 3 logs and the usual 2 pine cones.

The race was to determine how many logs Woodie had chopped and had remaining, by the time Wicker reached the end of her 20 tree (60 logs) lane. Our first outcome pretty much confirmed my suspicions, as unpracticed Woodie had only managed to gather 50 logs to Wicker's 60 (Woodie chopped 26 trees to Wicker's 20)... even worse than I had expected (which was a roughly on par log count, with maybe a handful or two more logs on Woodie). Yikes! We realized this would take some practice if we wanted to maximize Woodie's results so off a plantin', readin', and choppin' we went. All these tests were carried out in the first few days before treeguards were capable of spawning in a world (We wanted to leif them behind, so to speak).

Fast forward through a number of attempts, and 70 logs to Wicker's 60 (Woodie chopped 15 more trees than Wicker, so 35 to her 20) seems to be the consistent result that emerged. Woodie had to do close to twice the work (chopped 1.75 times the number of trees Wicker chopped) to end up with 1.167 times (117%) the amount of logs at the end (not even 20% more). 175% more effort as far as number of trees chopped - plus the focus required to try to get as close to werebeaver mode as possible in order to not waste any more time than necessary on stopping and eating logs, nor eating any more logs than were required, so that you were as close to werebeaver mode as possible when Wicker finished her lane. In fact, the last chop in this scenario always results in werebeaver, so if that were disallowed the results would be even worse. Arguably, a lot of effort for such a measly reward (116.7% more logs). Only 10 more logs in this case... ya, lame. Really lame. What a letdown. Poor la Luce.

So we tried Honey Crystals next. Lets see what's up with that. Well, it doesn't change the number of trees Woodie has to chop down (still 35 trees to her 20). What it did do was slow the log metre loss per chop, so it spared Woodie a little over half of the time that he required to stop and eat logs before. Woodie had to stop and eat 5 times (7 logs each time) without Honey Crystals. 35 trees * 3 logs = 105 logs chopped. 105 logs harvested - 35 logs eaten = 70 logs remaining. WITH Honey Crystals, he only had to eat twice (2*7), so 105 - 14 logs eaten = 91 logs left to Woodie was the consistent result for our Honey Crystal runs. You get to keep more of the harvest, although you still have to work 1.75+ times harder (number of trees PLUS focused effort) to get 1.516 times (152%); just 1 log more than 1.5 times Wicker's harvest. Toss in 1.75 times more opportunities for Tree Guards to spawn for Woodie than Wicker and you have an even worse return on investment. For 1.75+ times the work you get just over 1.5 times the harvest. Much better numbers than base, but still not on par compared to the how little effort is required by any other character (press and hold space bar with a handful of flint axes) to achieve 100%.

So, in conclusion, human Woodie plus magical cursed axe Lucy's base effort achieves just 1.167 times the harvest of any other character with a flint axe while simultaneously requiring 1.75 times the number of fully mature trees. What a scam! With the benefit of Honey Crystals, Woodie & Lucy can reach 1.516 times the harvest for 1.75 times more fully mature trees. Character exclusive sugar-spice ain't all that nice when it can't even equal the effort. Keep in mind that in a practical setting, the lack of fully mature trees available and distance between trees, plus the 1.75 times more potential for Tree Guards will only complicate the process, increase the time involved, and diminish the results that much further. Kinda stinks, doesn't it? I think Lucy smells a farce. No wonder she so vehemently protests being stuck in Woodie's backpack!

[Maxposting]

Why don't you use the curse for the cutting, the log meter goes back on if you chop trees as werebeaver.

[ShadowDuelist]

38 minutes ago, __IvoCZE__ said:

Why don't you use the curse for the cutting, the log meter goes back on if you chop trees as werebeaver.

To my understanding the point of this detailed experiment was just to test out woodie's human performance, and his interaction with lucy, or more specifically how underperforming is woodie if he pays attention to lucy and just chops trees, and eat logs to prevent the werebeaver. 

I suppose the results just confirm that the werebeaver needs to be embraced and can't be avoided, otherwise you get in a big disadvantage as a character.

Lucy may indeed, as OP suggested, be a gateway for woodie to become a beaver as often as pssible, despite what she says. Hopefully we will learn more on the true nature of woodie's curse and Lucy's intentions on his rework's animation

[cantdeletethis]

seriously human woodie is a bummer for me. what does he have to offer?

all he got is chattering ax, the curse of werebeaver. no such thing on his normal state

his profile is "woodie the lumberjack" not "woodie the lucy wielder/werebeaver"

[trinket_4]

you guys know that woodie can eat other stuff to avoid the werebeaver right?

2 twigs = 1 log

Also, you don't need to avoid the werebeaver at all costs, if you want to farm some logs, you need to use it.  Just avoid the transformation if you're insane or if you don't wanna farm logs

[WoodieMain45684]

Yea.... Like the others are saying above you really shouldn't be eating wood to try and combat the beaverness. In fact, the beaver is exceptional at chopping trees as it only requires 4 work-actions to chop down a tier 3 tree which is less than lucy or even a glass axe and is halved to 2 work actions if the beaver is on honey crystals. While I can get your frustration, I think that you shouldn't be judging Woodie by his axe alone. And if you think Beaver is unplayable because of the insanity drain. Well then, get good at kiting insanity creatures or plant cones before the turn, it's not that hard. You know exactly when you are going to go beaver. (When beaverness hits 25 or when a full moon occurs which is every 20 days after day 11.) Lucy is an instrument to help you get into beaver quickly so you can chop trees; not an instrument whose sole purpose is to chop trees. If you plan out your transformations, or just fight the shadows off. You'll find that Woodie is only outmatched by an army of pigs, Maxwell, and giants. Which is still too many things IMO. #1GnawStumps

[maradyne]

He's a pretty good chopper if you plant your trees in a tight square/circle, since Lucy will never be too far away. Still not as good as Maxwell; you might be able to keep up chopping, but stumps take far too long, and there's no opportunity to collect the dropped resources in-between tree falls. There's also the issue of constantly turning back and forth between Werebeaver and human if you're keeping up a decent chopping rate, which is a loss to cutting time and Werebeaver-speed chopping. And if you're going at tree harvesting for a good while, you'll eventually have to start dodging/fighting shadows while harvesting, further removing efficiency.
Woodie isn't in a good spot as a wood-chopper.

I think he's due some buffs to Werebeaver harvest rate on non-tree items like stumps (or maybe just make stumps fully uproot on their own when the Werebeaver chops a tree) and some more ways to manage beaverness.

 

Thoughts on that:
- Beaver Snacks, which temporarily prevent the Log Meter from going up in either form (allows beaver to keep chopping with reckless abandon), can be fed to the Werebeaver by other players (or eaten off the ground of course), reference Scooby Doo through quotes, and can be eaten by Wortox for 1 Sanity because haha.
- A buff to Lucy in which, so long as she's being held, Woodie won't transform, and if he's below the Werebeaver threshold, begins regaining Log Meter points automatically.

This accomplishes two things:
- Human Woodie becomes decent tier
- Management options make Werebeaver desirable rather than typically avoided

 

The specific downsides he could have are another conversation that I've had many a time, so not going into that here.

[Queron81]

19 hours ago, maradyne said:

And if you're going at tree harvesting for a good while, you'll eventually have to start dodging/fighting shadows while harvesting, further removing efficiency.

Just plant some trees between beaver times.

[maradyne]

30 minutes ago, Queron81 said:

Just plant some trees between beaver times.

I wasn't saying it as a problem to deal with, I meant that the increasing insanity was a time-sink, compared to Maxwell who can just keep chopping away. Pinecone sanity is of course a neat perk, but in this case it's just another thing to add to the extra time and effort required to actually chop wood as Woodie/Werebeaver.
The constant changing back and forth and the fact that the Werebeaver goes insane/so quickly are both problems.

[Queron81]

5 hours ago, maradyne said:

I wasn't saying it as a problem to deal with, I meant that the increasing insanity was a time-sink, compared to Maxwell who can just keep chopping away. Pinecone sanity is of course a neat perk, but in this case it's just another thing to add to the extra time and effort required to actually chop wood as Woodie/Werebeaver.

But someone has to plant new trees anyway. Maxwell has to do this too. So I don't see playing as a werebeaver as a disadvantage here. And as Woodie you don't have to deal with less/reduced maximum health/sanity. Sanity is never a problem for Woodie, as you always get more pinecones than you need. And as werebeaver you can also kill poison birchnut trees very quick, so you can continue your work fast.

[Pedro cc]

gunpowder>poison birchnut trees

[Thomas Die]

i'm planning on making this as a mod but whatever

lucy could be throwable like in forge to give her more use as a tool

werebeaver could not cause sanity drain but at the end cause stat debuff such as 0.5 damage for a day