If It Were Up To You, Would Woodie Gain Sanity From Planting Pinecones?

[Dr. Safety]

With what we know now, what would you say? I’ve seen arguments for both sides, and given some of the crazy polls I’ve seen on this site, this seems par for the course.

[Thomas Die]

i think that it's really just a side abilities that has no real reason to be there but weak way to regain sanity after beaver mode even tho it really doesn't help much

because were beaver is like eating nightmare fuel equivalent of sanity drain

[Mr.Tarunio]

wear a tam or cultivate green caps with 50% more guards.

[Viktor234]

Just get the Bee Queen Crown, gather all the Treeguards you spawned and you'll get your own Sanity Station as Woodie: No more suffering from your transformations!

[Paddlefruit]

He doesnt really need another buff after his rework

I think he's better without it

[trinket_4]

This pool should be answered by players who actually play woodie, otherwise it will have a big bias...

I don't know how the sanity drain for the werebeaver is going to be, but if it stays close to -90/min (current sanity drain) we need a way to recover from that

[Bird Up]

Considering he has no downsides, he doesn't need the pinecone perk to be a strong character. From a balance perspective, it looks like he's already going to outclass Wilson, so I don't think he needs an oversaturated kit with all these nice perks. He's essentially Wilson, but with various buffs (chop faster, permanent beard, befriend allies longer, increased treeguard spawn rate, and able to change to various useful forms at will). Of course he can't shave his beard like Wilson, but that's pretty negligible. He's definitely going to be quite powerful and his 2 new forms are exciting.

[maradyne]

As someone who really liked some of the things you could do with the pinecone perk in the past...
It was honestly just a patch job put in place to make up for Woodie getting PvP balanced into the ground during the early days of DST.

If the redesign is as good as it's looking, he won't need the pinecone sanity crutch anymore.

[Ezaroth]

They said the sanity drain will be tuned down, so we can't tell if they should keep the ability until they released the full details.

Personally, gaining sanity from planting pine cones doesn't make sense as a lumberjack, he should be gaining them by chopping trees instead.

Also, it now makes the perk unique to Wormwood which makes more sense.

[Owlrust]

Honestly, it didn't hurt to have a side-perk like +5 per pinecone. I barely place them anyways, but it's still nice to have when you transform back. No real reason to get rid of it just for the sake of it tbh. 

1 hour ago, trinket_4 said:

This pool should be answered by players who actually play woodie, otherwise it will have a big bias

I agree with this statement. People that don't play a certain character have less of a chance to understand how certain changes will affect the playstyle in the longrun. It's the same as when people (me included) argued that Willow did not need fire immunity despite not playing her at all. Upon revision I understood why people were pushing for it after maining her during the update, as they kinda knew her best.

It's also still a bit early to be saying yes or no when we have no idea what the sanity drain will be per minute. In my opinion, 30 sanity or higher: keep the pine cone perk; 20 sanity or lower: not too concerned about it.

[MondayNight]

It is too early for now to assess reworked Woodie. Depends how taxing are the new were-beaver/badger/whatever forms. Personally, as a first impression, though maybe are fun, these 3 subdivisions seem a bit of an over-complication. Maybe they are rewarding enough to compensate for lack of said pine-cones sanity mechanic. Or perhaps not. A very minor vocal "try-hard" minority on these forums was advocating for harsher general conditions from early game and a part of it (some 3-4 people) pointed at "soft nerfing" - or otherwise pretty punishing downsides - of characters as a way to achieve that. Looking at Warly and Wormwood maybe that's also a direction for Woodie: narrow-niche character. In which case... what can I say?! Gg "try-hards"! Maybe these changes are aimed at a more co-op game-style.. while forgetting DST is basically played in 2 main different ways: the vast/casual bulk's way, struggling without the co-op notion at all or even if faintly, they are too noobish to actually achieve it; and the very thin minority of "pro"/experienced players' way - mostly solo-ing the game and/or not needing co-op either. Time will tell.

Meanwhile I don't see almost any Warly or Wormwood on servers. Again, gg "niche-charaters" - a "great" way to appeal to large masses

[SinancoTheBest]

5 minutes ago, x0VERSUS1y said:

Meanwhile I don't see almost any Warly or Wormwood on servers. Again, gg "niche-charaters" - a "great" way to appeal to large masses

2

I don't know which servers you're playing in but I honestly struggle to find servers without Wormwood or Warly. Especially Wormwood.

I wish Klei collected and released some statistics on the character picks in their own dedicated servers because right now so many people in these forums spout a random observation on which characters are played more and which characters are never played to support their arguments. They so often clash with each other.

[MondayNight]

40 minutes ago, SinancoTheBest said:

I don't know which servers you're playing in but I honestly struggle to find servers without Wormwood or Warly. Especially Wormwood.

I wish Klei collected and released some statistics on the character picks in their own dedicated servers because right now so many people in these forums spout a random observation on which characters are played more and which characters are never played to support their arguments. They so often clash with each other.

Official Klei pubs and pubs in general - aka random Survival Dedicated ones. If you play community servers, like Diverse Survivors for example - more so if Endless - then there the situation is a bit different. Though most Warlies and Wormwoods still struggle and "fail miserably". Also pls don't get me started about some "try-hards" I encountered on random pubs and how well they "faired" these characters or in general - the more time I spend reading these forums the more I see the hypocrisy and the overestimation of ones aptitudes (low-end of Dunning-Kruger effect spectrum much?!) - "I solo DF day 2 wit ham badz and nothin else om pubs, I bezt, fit mi"

[maradyne]

For the record, as an absolute psychopath with nothing resembling a human sleep schedule, I've noticed that different types of people play during different parts of the day in just about any multiplayer game. Keep this in mind when considering discrepancies between your observations and someone else's on how many people play in a given way. We only see what we happen to see.

[MondayNight]

I don't have one small window relegated by my time-zone. I've played in about every time-zone, mostly during weekend when people in general play the most. And ofc there is a spectrum, but reading DST forums said very tiny "vocal minority" makes it sound like the game is an absolute cake-walk and all is so "ez-pz" that DST became a boring stale plate from that alone. And then I look at pubs' situation and ofc the rhetorical "WTF" pops reading some of the "popular" over-estimated opinions bathing in blatant exaggerations.

[Pop Guy]

1 hour ago, x0VERSUS1y said:

It is too early for now to assess reworked Woodie. Depends how taxing are the new were-beaver/badger/whatever forms. Personally, as a first impression, though maybe are fun, these 3 subdivisions seem a bit of an over-complication. Maybe they are rewarding enough to compensate for lack of said pine-cones sanity mechanic. Or perhaps not. A very minor vocal "try-hard" minority on these forums was advocating for harsher general conditions from early game and a part of it (some 3-4 people) pointed at "soft nerfing" - or otherwise pretty punishing downsides - of characters as a way to achieve that. Looking at Warly and Wormwood maybe that's also a direction for Woodie: narrow-niche character. In which case... what can I say?! Gg "try-hards"! Maybe these changes are aimed at a more co-op game-style.. while forgetting DST is basically played in 2 main different ways: the vast/casual bulk's way, struggling without the co-op notion at all or even if faintly, they are too noobish to actually achieve it; and the very thin minority of "pro"/experienced players' way - mostly solo-ing the game and/or not needing co-op either. Time will tell.

Meanwhile I don't see almost any Warly or Wormwood on servers. Again, gg "niche-charaters" - a "great" way to appeal to large masses

In fact, lately, I see practically only:
1) Webber
2) Wickerbottom - WX-78
3) Wilson
Especially Webber, it's amazing how popular it is !!

[Canis]

since the game is an absolute cake-walk and all is so ez-pz, Woodie doesn't need *another* upside.

 

Wait, hol' up.

 

In all seriousness, no, he doesn't need it. Perhaps Klei's view on a downside is insanity, which isn't that much of a bad thing and more of an inconvenience at best.

[Maxposting]

51 minutes ago, x0VERSUS1y said:

-le klei pubs snip-

This screenshot still shows that most of the playerbase is still new and doesn't know how to survive the 1st night. ^{( no offensive shout-outs like oh look at these noobies, no no no, to be honest I think those peeps just had bad luck and will get a lot better at the game in the future )}

[WoodieMain45684]

I don't think he really needs it; there are plenty of other ways to gain sanity in human form. And as many others have said, it seems like he doesn't have a tangible downdside. So removing this one upside is probably going to be the closest thing to a downside we are going to get. (The increased treeguards is kindoff a neutral perk, as they drop living logs and can be kited to farm pigs, bunnymen, tentacles, and deerclops.) Also it seems like the transformation is less forced on the player as it only occurs during fullmoons and when the player chooses to activate it, so they would be less likely to be forced into a heavy sanity drain situation anyways. Old Woodie's meter drained constantly, which ment you had to either transform and regain beaverness at the cost of sanity or eat your own supply of wood.

[Ermac__]

That's such a small upside(or downside of not having it, either way to you look at it) I wouldn't even really consider it if I was "designing" woodie. There's so many characterless sanity items that him losing pinecones is very marginal, and that's if you care about going insane at all. It'd be pretty irrelevant to any woodie player that plays the game for more than a week. I'd focus on a downside that always relevant and has more impact on how you play the character.

[Ermac__]

3 hours ago, x0VERSUS1y said:

I don't have one small window relegated by my time-zone. I've played in about every time-zone, mostly during weekend when people in general play the most. And ofc there is a spectrum, but reading DST forums said very tiny "vocal minority" makes it sound like the game is an absolute cake-walk and all is so "ez-pz" that DST became a boring stale plate from that alone. And then I look at pubs' situation and ofc the rhetorical "WTF" pops reading some of the "popular" over-estimated opinions bathing in blatant exaggerations.

That's not surprising given that new players first point of playing online is official dedicated pubs. Once people start to become decent at the game and want to start getting to progress that lasts past winter they'll look elsewhere. That was my first server option too when I was new.

Also, I see tons of Wormwoods. I don't think I've gotten a server without wormwood and I also play in many different timezone active hours. So can't agree with that anecdote. If woody requires some brainpower to use that's fine with me, there are really a lot of low entry barrier characters for new players to play.

[Queron81]

Just change +5 to +1 for planting pine cones.

[FreyaMaluk]

8 hours ago, __IvoCZE__ said:

This screenshot still shows that most of the playerbase is still new and doesn't know how to survive the 1st night. ^{( no offensive shout-outs like oh look at these noobies, no no no, to be honest I think those peeps just had bad luck and will get a lot better at the game in the future )}

This Screenshot kinda violates klei forums policies. You aren't supposed to show people's names. JS

____________

And if his sanity drain gets more manageable I don't think he really needs the sanity from planting. Tbh, I never quite got why he had it in the first place. Always felt out of character imo and I'm quite happy is gonna go. In the end, if his sanity is gonna drain on a more reasonable pace he can rely on sanity recovery methods like any other character out there. 3 transformations would be absolutely beast and imo kinda op with pine cone sanity perk. 

We will have to wait and see for the actual update to gain more precise data. 

[maradyne]

The one part I can wholly agree on is Warly.
I see a lot of Wormwoods in public servers; usually one or two per game, just a bit more commonly than most other characters. I'd attribute it to his straightforwardness; while some might consider him a pain due to not being able to heal in the way standard to 'baseline' character behavior, that con is simple to understand, and his pros are just as easy to adjust to. Demand seeds from everyone, spam food for centuries. Even his synergy combos are quick to figure out; you spam a button in the crafting tab while Wortox drops a whole orphanage worth of souls to negate the cost. You plant a bunch of seed, and Wickerbottom does Wickerbottom things.
Someone plays Wendy or Webber and then suddenly this new exciting thing called a Tent exists.

...Warly is a bit more shrouded in mystery. He practically requires the player to know a list of recipes that the game doesn't tell the player in any way beyond trial and error. His food cooldown mechanic also isn't directly indicated; the player just sees some chat popup over the character's head, which a lot of people probably don't think about too much upon seeing it...given the amount of questions I've gotten about why food stopped working. His buffs are situational, and require a little micromanagement around the group.

I'd say that Wormwood is the easier to grasp character who can provide more immediate strength, and thereby appeals more to less experienced players...but his mastery bar is low. You can go in not having any idea what you're doing with the character and still be ok. You can't reach as high as someone like Warly, but the character is more accessible.
Whereas with Warly, it's all about the heights. The mastery. You prepare and plan and make use of what you know, or you flop. He requires more attention, and at least a little bit of dedication.
...he's perhaps made a bit worse by being deceptively complicated. His mechanics don't sound like much to tackle...which makes it that much easier to draw in a player who's barely played the game early on, have a bad, unfair-feeling experience, and never go back to the character.

Wortox is like, right between the two. Super straightforward...but prone to mismanagement if you let yourself get too comfortable, or haven't really learned the game yet. He ends up less popular, but definitely a staple character.

 

I'm wondering where Woodie will fall in all of this. I like the variety in skill levels required and the potential that we've been getting among new characters/reworks; sometimes, you want to try some sick strat. Sometimes you want to be the server messiah that holds it all together. Sometimes you just want to chillax and goof around, or, y'know, watch the world fall to pieces around you while spamming Wendy /yawn police sirens.
I feel like Woodie is going to be less straightforward than Wormwood, but ultimately less difficult to manage (though perhaps more intimidating to new players due to unique mechanics?) than Wortox. Definitely not as much of a trap as Warly comes off as, though.

[blizstorm]

I currently get woodie to chop forest, and just let him go beaver. After he become beaver, the beaver will just chop more trees to go back to human. While in human, woodie then plant the pine cone to regain the sanity lost. If I had been chopping adult pine cone, I should get 50 pine cone, which is more than enough to fully restore woodie sanity. This way of cutting trees for woodie uses the beaver advantage in cutting trees, and avoids woodie eating logs

Each time woodie become beaver, it will cost 60-90 sanity before beaver return back to human. So before I allow woodie to become beaver, my woodie first need the sanity buffer before he can become beaver. Woodie get those sanity by planting the pine cone. The nightmare creatures while in beaver form is a great hindrance.

Woodie ability to stay in beaver is limited by sanity. Without easy way to restore sanity, using beaver is too risky and hence woodie does not get much chance to go beaver.