outdated Woodie is still "Meh": An Initial Evaluation

[Ezaroth]

The penalty is pretty harsh to transform. In addition to the initial -30HP and -20 Sanity, you respawn with zero hunger which causes you to take more damage if you don't eat instantly and you lose even more sanity while in were-form.

Guess I'll just chop trees as human form Woodie.

[FreyaMaluk]

7 minutes ago, Sunset Skye said:

If you've been doing this in a real world, it's arguably worse to form an opinion so quickly, because you aren't even be able to spawn in things and test the transformations in a variety of situations. It means you've only experienced 30 minutes of the very early game or 30 minutes of the late-game. That's not even 10 minutes with each transformation, considering you have to take the time to craft the idols.

Instant starvation is a slight annoyance, but it's still just hunger. That's never been hard to come by, especially for a character who can eat any food.

some things do require larger testing sessions but the transformations aren't really that hard to evaluate specially because the duration of said transformations is very very short.. and the goose underwhelming performance is not something that requires large testing either...

ofc they might be some situations things to consider but overall a quick testing can also give an insight into the apparent flaws that need to be improved regardless of playtime.

about hunger I don't have anything to say... that is a non issue IMO... easily manageable.

[Crimson Chin]

5 minutes ago, Sunset Skye said:

If you've been doing this in a real world, it's arguably worse to form an opinion so quickly, because you aren't even be able to spawn in things and test the transformations in a variety of situations. It means you've only experienced 30 minutes of the very early game or 30 minutes of the late-game. That's not even 10 minutes with each transformation, considering you have to take the time to craft the idols.

Instant starvation is a slight annoyance, but it's still just hunger. That's never been hard to come by, especially for a character who can eat any food.

It is true hunger isn't an issue really, but there are already BETTER options in game rather than dealing with his transformations....... Which last barely a minute. These issues are very.... obvious. I really don't have to play for a year to see them.

Compared to the other reworks Woodie's had a lot of effort put into it. The transformations all look nice, but its just so strange that these very easy to spot issues got overlooked.

[Spirit Glow]

I agree with the OP wholeheartedly. I would have loved to see the meter work similar to old werebeaver where doing the action gives you some meter back and not doing it makes it drain faster. Right now it drains no matter what, its just that doing the action makes it drain less. 

The transformations are "meh" at best as they are. Losing 30 health for using an idol is also a bit silly imo.

 

And last but not least, being put at 0 hunger after transformation is insane to me. So basically you lose health, sanity, and hunger for a transformation with very few results. Why would you ever use moose over typical armor and weapon? why use goose over a walking cane? Not enough benefit for me to justify transforming into anything other than beaver.

 

[Lakurius]

henlo canis calm down pls woodie is still high b tier UwU

[FreyaMaluk]

 

40 minutes ago, Pop Guy said:

Hi Freya! I'm happy to see you back!
 

never left... just perfecting my lurker mode ... until today xD

[Canis]

Just now, Lakurius said:

henlo canis calm down pls woodie is still high b tier UwU

no

[Pop Guy]

1 minute ago, FreyaMaluk said:

 

never left... just perfecting my lurker mode ... until today xD

I put you in a meme this morning, I needed a face to put on the Dragonfly in the Loading screen ;'D

[Ermac__]

The idols are cheap but even with the common mats, none of the forms are really that good to be this short, in addition to the cost of hp the idol charges you. I'd rather the idols be more expensive, but the forms last longer...and the forms being better. This would make the forms more meaningful.

 

Also...

Moose: Can't heal, is slow, good damage but low timer and slow speed makes a lot of your timer wasted on kiting. His ram attack is good for trash mobs but like, wendy/abigail can do the same thing, and probably kill them faster, since charge has a long recovery time, and can't really be manipulated to stop early. Not sure how you kill any boss with this guy aside from healing/eating between transforms and using more heals/time than you need to. Why not just do it in human form again?

Goose: Can move fast, not sure how useful this. Doesn't seem bad but doesn't seem that great, and more importantly it's kinda boring.

I guess I agree with OP about werebeaver, although I'm going to take wager he still loses to maxwell as far as logging efficiency. 

 

Also forgot, that everyone else pointed out sets your health to 0 when recovered. For only a minute of transform time that definitely does not seem like a good trade for hunger.

 

 

[Sweaper]

Just my initial thoughts that I posted in another thread

 

The 0 hunger can be redundant if you transform at 0 hunger (EDIT: plus you can chain a transformation after another to skip having to eat after every transformation) but it could be a bug too, since the weremeter replaces the hunger icon so those two could've been programmed as the same thing. Moose can easily kill a big mob of spiders in just 2 charges, making him probably faster than wendy/webber/wolfgang at farming those. The Goose can be a cheap way to map out the ruins really early after you find the blue mushtrees forest. Those are my thoughts after testing him real quick.

 

Moose isn't great (good enough nonetheless) to solo bosses from my tests with Deerclopes though, I had to use at least 2-3 transformations to get the job done.

[axxel]

Woodie is now an allrounder. Klei was afraid to give him all-star abilities. Yeah kinda a bummer if you compare it with Wortox' mobility (number of souls) or Wolgang's mighty form (amount of food).

My suggestion regarding the lenght of wereforms: For each segment the moon has the were-meter runs out more slowly. I think in a world with "only day" should update the moon phases anyway so there shouldn't be a problem. Caves are "new moon". I think a timer of 1 min with constantly adding points to the were meter on a full moon is fine. 
A little max HP bonus for the moose would be nice to counter the -30 and the goose doesn't really need HP he would be fine if he has lower max HP.

 

[X-lem]

I agree on many fronts. 30 seconds for 30 health is bogus. His transformation should last min 120 seconds (when transformed via an idol). I like your idea of having transformations shorter when he shoves his face with monster meat (here 30 seconds makes sense).

 

Having the idols cost 1 living log and 15 health and 20 sanity makes much more sense.

Also, the goose moving fast for 30 for 30 health is kinda… lame and broken. He should be able to swim 100%. If he just runs fast for a short while it's not worth 30 health. No one will ever use this intentionally.

The moose should also not be so slow. You know how fast moose are in real life? Fast.

 

Edit:

After watching the Livestream yesterday and playing Woody more I have to add two things.

Klei said they kept the time short for the transformation so you didn't get stuck in it if you wanted to get out. Which makes sense. I could see some situations where being stuck in the transformation would be frustrating.

Second, the moose doesn't do near enough damage. Especially the charge. I charged a teir 3 spider nest thinking I would destroy it. I almost got destroyed by the spiders that came out. With the 30 health loss and the damage from the first spider bite I was basically dead.

If I can't even destroy a spider nest while charging what good is it? It's too slow to use against bosses and if it's not strong enough to fight bigger things like a bunch of spiders or Beefalo what good is it? Kiting with a hambat would deal more damage in the long run. I feel like there's 0 reason to transform now.

The moose needs bigger max health, at least 90% defence, and do more damage.

[Spirit Glow]

Sidenote i also think it would be funny if the goose could attack. It could be like a 5 damage peck but it would be hilarious to peck and run like a real goose XD

[Pumking7]

Can everyone stop ignoring the problems with beaver that never got addressed, woodie's werebeaver is still worse than woodie as a harvester of anything but trees. I made an original comment on the rework announcement that he takes 3x more gnaws on anything that isn't a tree, for example 1 dig of a stumpt is three gnaws of a werebeaver. If they could fix this then he would be *better* but in reality he needs a way to increase were-meter while in wereform.

[Szczuku]

Yeah there's definitelly some tweaking needed to the rework.

Transformations were Woodie's big thing and now they're pretty disappointing,

The transformations themselves last like a minute when you're not doing what they're made for and two minutes when you are. Like I swear I used the Werebeaver in naturall grassland and walking from tree to tree wasted like 20% of the were-meter, Speaking of which, the speed that the meter drains at needs to calm down. Give us at least 10 seconds to kite/walk from tree to tree before you go lightning speed down.

WereGoose- Isn't actually all that good. I mean I guess it's nice to have an early game way of exploring the map fast but other than that it's pretty bad. I'd probably just use walking cane instead of: hurting myself, making myself starve and lowering my sanity. Like seriously, is its usefullness limited to early game only?

WereBeaver- Only usefull for chopping down trees. Going from boulder to boulder is just a waste of an idol. He may as well only have the option to gnaw trees and stumps

WereMoose- Useless. I'm sorry to say that but it actually seems really useless. It's just an upgraded version of the problem with original WereBeaver. By that I mean: no way to regenerate health and you'll be insane if you decide to attack anything that is tougher than a Beefalo. Sure it has bigger damage and armor plus that nice  charge attack but... it's not that good. Are you really gonna charge around durring a boss fights? Tbh I could see that work but only in a team. From a perspective of someone who only plays alone the WereMoose is just an early game version of hambat+logsuit combo. It's figting capabilities feel like they're limited to weak enemies only. I tried to attack Shattered Spiders and they litteraly almost killed me in like 10 seconds. Even a fight with a Treeguard (an enemy that Woodie is now supposed to encounter often) took almost an entire weremeter.

It seems like transformations got turned into his "weak strong ability" (y'know something like Wendy's reduced sanity drain or Winona's ability to dodge Charlie's 1st attack) and that his main strong ability is Lucy. And even then in a team scenario Wormwood + Wortox is a better Living Wood farm.

It's quite sad and worying, tbh, seeing this. I'm getting flashbacks from Hamlet when it all slowly started falling apart and people's opinions on Hamlet were getting worse and worse. 1st the cinematic doesn't show any sort of lore, only the display of new transformations (also it kinda bothered me that the style was changed into a "happy and jolly" cartoon but that's just my opinion) and then the rework itself didn't really please the community.

[Canis]

2 minutes ago, Pumkingthegreat said:

Can everyone stop ignoring the problems with beaver that never got addressed, woodie's werebeaver is still worse than woodie as a harvester of anything but trees. I made an original comment on the rework announcement that he takes 3x more gnaws on anything that isn't a tree, for example 1 dig of a stumpt is three gnaws of a werebeaver. If they could fix this then he would be *better* but in reality he needs a way to increase were-meter while in wereform.

Honestly, The Werebeaver's fine. although uprooting a stump with one gnaw would be great, especially since the Werebeaver has a tendancy to autotarget stumps more often than not.

[FreyaMaluk]

6 minutes ago, Pumkingthegreat said:

Can everyone stop ignoring the problems with beaver that never got addressed, woodie's werebeaver is still worse than woodie as a harvester of anything but trees. I made an original comment on the rework announcement that he takes 3x more gnaws on anything that isn't a tree, for example 1 dig of a stumpt is three gnaws of a werebeaver. If they could fix this then he would be *better* but in reality he needs a way to increase were-meter while in wereform.

the gnaws per stump hasn't changed... unfortunately... 

as many other, I also suggested to eliminate the stump stage while gnawing... but that all seems unchanged.... tbh I'm surprised so many cool suggestions didn't make into this version we just got... let's hope the devs change it cuz gnawing three time on stumps blows

2 minutes ago, Canis said:

Honestly, The Werebeaver's fine. although uprooting a stump with one gnaw would be great, especially since the Werebeaver has a tendancy to autotarget stumps more often than not.

actually one suggestion I had before was like pound with the beaver's tail to uproot the stumps... that would be fun xD

and I disagree strongly with the idea that gnawing 3 times on a stump is fine... too much unnecessarily long chore time IMO.

[Pumking7]

Just now, Canis said:

Werebeaver's fine

I am just kind of upset because this is a woodie rework, why didn't his original form get as much love as his others you know :(.

[Gabriel_Dreyer]

1 hour ago, Canis said:

Werebeaver:

The beaver now does it's job well. Since it does it's job so fast, you can easily amass a hundred logs with one or two idols, granted you're in a dense forest. 

Also, the Werebeaver's weremeter drains slower if the beaver attacks things, which is an unintended feature, Im guessing.

Problem: None

Potential Solution: n/a, the Beaver is the only transformation that I'm 100% happy with.

 

Aboot the Werebeaver I wish he could dig the stumps with one gnaw. Just that. Overall, good.

 

1 hour ago, Canis said:

Weregoose:

The most disappointing mechanic. The only thing it can do is run. No flying, no swimming. Just run at around the same speed as Overcharged WX (150% speed) with a walking cane (apparently the goose runs at 140% speed, I myself haven't tested this.) I'd say, the best way to move this out of mediocrity is to give it the ability to swim. That way, it can be used in all stages of the game.

Problem: Mediocre transformation

Potential Solution: Give it the ability to swim, to expand it's usefulness so it has more uses, and so it doesn't become obsolete in mid-late game.

>-30 hp
>coming back with 0 hunger

>run for just one minute

>?????

 

I totally agree with you, mate.

 

1 hour ago, Canis said:

Weremoose:

While yes, having damage around the same place as the Hambat is cool and all, he's slow, which means that he is going to either soak up damage, or waste weremeter kiting. Also, using the idol for this is counter-intuitive if you want to tank, because the idol itself takes away 30 health upon use. In addition, since you can go from 100 weremeter to 0 in a span of 30 seconds even while constantly attacking, meaning that, if you're fighting a boss, you have to use SEVERAL IDOLS, which are 30 health a pop, mind you. 

Problem: Idol use is counter-intuitive as it drains HP. Tanking is seemingly the intended use, however the Weremoose only has (what it seems to be) 80% protection. The transformation duration is too short to efficiently utilize.

Potential Solution: Raise the Damage Resistance to 90%. Increase the Transformation duration for the Weremoose so it can be utilized in more combat situations, such as bosses.

I agree. Or raise the Damage Resistance or, lower the damage he takes eating the Idol could help, 

1 hour ago, Canis said:

The Idols:

The idols have a penalty of 30 HP and 20 sanity. If you want to continually use idols over and over (for example: the Moose idol in a boss fight), you're going to quickly kill yourself. This wouldn't be so much of a problem if the transformations weren't so short in duration. 

Another problem that they have is that they are dirt cheap. Seriously, you could mass-produce them before day 5. If we look at the idols with the intended use of "Risk/Reward items" then that's completely out of wack.

Problem: The idols seem to have a lackluster risk/reward balance. In addition, they are EXTREMELY cheap.

Potential Solution: Increase the duration for wereforms if activated by an idol, and/or lower the HP penalty (15?), In addition, add 1 Living Log to each Idol's crafting recipe, which goes well with Woodie's increased chance of treeguards. (It also motivates him to go chopping)

 

As much as it pains me to say this, as a Woodie main, I'm more or less disappointed with Woodie. His lackluster abilities, while good in some situations, are extremely niche and will 100% be overshadowed after mid-game, which isn't something a character perk should be. Overall, we're experiencing some bad deja-vu.

Again, I agree with you. Lowering the HP and adding 1 Living Log seems great to me.

I liked the Were-forms, they have a lot of potential, just need refining, you know?

[ShadowDuelist]

I think each transformation requires its own duration depending on their usefulness, and the way you stay in the shape should be more rewarding:

GOOSE:  strongly agree it needs to hover, so it can run through the water. I also think goose should get a small passive HP regeneration, and it should be the one that last the longest - if you fly constantly you should get a day - if you stop moving, you rush the transformation back to woodie. This way it becomes the exploration form, or the "escape and heal" form.

WEREBEAVER: he's pretty okay, but I think as you chop trees, the bar should actually gain a little, so you could stay as beaver indefinately should you choose so. If you stop chopping trees, the meter will run fast and you will turn back to woodie

WEREMOOSE: Im not sure if this is a bug or its intended, but currently the moose seems to get a lot of extra hp from the jellybeans.
Eat a jellybean, turn to moose, you'll be almost unbeatable.

The problem is that it doesn't last enough to do anything useful, despite turning you into godmode for a few seconds. If the jellybeans mechanics is how its mean to be, so be it, but let him regain some of his moose meter as he fights in order to let him do something useful.

[Spirit Glow]

1 minute ago, ShadowDuelist said:

I think each transformation requires its own duration depending on their usefulness, and the way you stay in the shape should be more rewarding:

GOOSE:  strongly agree it needs to hover, so it can run through the water. I also think goose should get a small passive regeneration, and it should be the one that last the longest - if you fly constantly you should get a day - if you stop moving, you rush the transformation back to woodie.

WEREBEAVER: he's pretty okay, but I think as you chop trees, the bar should actually gain a little, so you could stay as beaver indefinately should you choose so. If you stop chopping trees, the meter will run fast and you will turn back to woodie

WEREMOOSE: Im not sure if this is a bug or its intended, but currently the moose seems to get a lot of extra hp from the jellybeans.
Eat a jellybean, turn to moose, you'll be almost unbeatable.

The problem is that it doesn't last enough to do anything useful, despite turning you into godmode for a few seconds. If the jellybeans mechanics is how its mean to be, so be it, but let him regain some of his moose meter as he fights in order to let him do something useful.

Very good suggestions. I think moose should get more max hp or higher armor. The meter timers also def need tweaks.

[FreyaMaluk]

also gnaing while mining a boulder needs to get updated... it takes 18 gnaws for a boulder vs 6 hits from pickaxe... that's a bit nonsensical

I mean gnawing in general needs a rework cuz it's just too much of a chore to do something with Woodie... 

 

[maciu67]

So Wes tell us what are you thinking about Woodie rework?

[Pruinae]

What I dislike about the Woodie rework is that, even though he is great at doing a bunch of things now, there are characters that are better at doing those specific things and they end up doing those things for cheaper if they are doing the specified task for longer. 

M-oose - Wolfgang exists. May be better than Abigail at area damage but Abigail is pretty much free and lasts indefinitely.

Goose - May be faster than WX if WX isn't using a walking cane, but WX charge lasts much longer and is probably cheaper (needs another player as Wicker though) considering Woodie will have to stop to regen sanity/health/hunger. I would mention Wortox, but boats do exist now (except in caves).

Werebeaver - Isn't it still worse than Maxwell? May even be more expensive since Woodie will have to recharge his stats from time to time. You could argue that Treeguards will slow Maxwell down, but you could do an area with Winona's catapults to steal the aggro and kill them while Maxwell goes back to "working" (needs a swap/another player as Winona though and catapults aren't that cheap so Woodie may be better at gathering wood after all, or not, I'm too lazy to make the calculations).

 

[Stonetribe]

After testing out his new transformations, I concur that Woodie definitely still needs a bit of tweaking. But on the bright side, I'd say that he has regained his rightful title as the undisputed wood gatherer even without werebeaver, so at least there's that! Also of note is that he doesn't really have much in the way of downsides now does he? If you refrain from using the idols, you only have to worry about the potential situations where you transform when you don't want to like the full moon and eating monster meat. The monster meat can obviously be easily avoided and you have plenty of time to prepare for each full moon.

Don't get me wrong, I still think he's in need of buffing! Just thought that these were things worth considering. ^_^