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The more I think about it the more Woodies rework seems like a fundamental mess.


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EDIT: WOODIE'S PRETTY MUCH BEEN FIXED NOW

There are two things I would like to say about my initial launch day evaluations about Woodies forms:

1) You DO NOT drop your backpack when transforming

2) Judging the Moose form completely off of trying to solo bosses was a bone headed idea.

It's great at demolishing hordes of spiders and Hounds and many other lower tier, non giant enemies.

HOWEVER: The damage reduction was too low, the form costed too much to activate, and it didn't last long enough.

All of those problems have now been fixed.

 

3) Using the goose for scouting is a bone headed idea.

The fact that you don't drop your bakcpack is huge, I've ended up finding SOME good use for the goose form by using it to return to base after a long exporation/expedition to the far reaches of the map/the caves.

HOWEVER: The form costed too much to activate, didn't last long enough, and the sanity drain was a big problem ontop of the initial cost.

All of those problems have now been fixed.

 

The werebeaver is also now way more effective, and lasts longer, which is amazing.

 

END OF EDIT, BASICALLY THE REST OF THIS IS OUTDATED

Singleplayer Werebeaver accomplishes EVERYTHING all 3 forms are meant for, but isnt affected by sanity or weather, is able to replenish its weremeter, and doesnt initially cost ANYTHING to activate.

DS Werebeaver is also great at combat, it does great damage, is fast and easy to kite with, takes a fair amount of damage, and can regenerate health.

 

Meanwhile none of the new forms share those perks, but instead are vaguely effective at their one job, but are effected by weather, sanity, use health, cant replenish their meter, and require a consumable items that drains health and sanity on use.

 

Why?

What is the point of splitting the singleplayers Werebeavers perks apart into three different forms that arent even better than the werebeaver at accomplishing any one of their tasks?

 

Even having the ability to keep their inventory and look at the map isnt jmportant when you could have another player around to pick up your items and tell you whats on the map.

You still drop your backpack, you cant pick up items, and have to keep an inventory slot or two open for totems.

 

The only good thing to come out of the update is the art and music.

 

Even the animated short was underwhelming, no story, strange artstyle, and isnt representative of Woodies new playstyle.

 

ADENDUM EDIT: A POSSIBLE SOLUTION.

Make it easier to stay in any of the forms.

Increase the werebeavers damage to about 34.

Allow the goose to attack very quick, but deal a low amount of damage.

Allow each of the forms to regenerate their meter, Beaver by eating wood, Moose by dealing damage, Goose by running around or standing still?

 

Also take away the health bar, but keep the downsides of using a totem when reverting back to human.

 

This will allow each form to accomplish similar tasks, but will still be able to specialize in something: Werebeaver at gathering, moose at AOE charging and tanking, and goose at being fast and annoying.

Not a fully fleshed out idea, but its something constructive atleast.

 

ADENDUM EDIT 2:

Why not just let Woodie transform between the different forms at will after already being transformed?

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100% agreed. I told ya'll that he should be kept simple. Really unfortunate that probably a lot of time was spent on the new transformations' art and the animated short, I'd say remove it all but that doesn't seem likely to happen. The people who handled this update really did not get what made Woodie appealing in the first place.

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The art style will be different through shorts, it looks good for me, but Woodie does look a bit weird!

The new two transformations for me were just a way to say they added new stuff for it, you know, refreshes adds new stuff, but Woodie didn't needed to add stuff, only work arround what he had.

Winona worked well, they gave a generators, light and damage, it had a rocky start (crafting consumed a lot of hunger) but worked in the end.

Willow was great because she needed to buff bernie and her fire immunity

But what about Woodie? they just gave him two transformations, don't get me wrong, I like how do they look and the animations are great and well worked, but it was unnecessary, sorry, Klei.

Hear me out, the only thing they needed to do is enhance Beaver experience, no flashy big animal like Bernie and 0 of hunger for "escape".

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26 minutes ago, Ogrecakes said:

...

Even having the ability to keep their inventory and look at the map isnt jmportant when you could have another player around to pick up your items and tell you whats on the map.

You still drop your backpack, you cant pick up items, and have to keep an inventory slot or two open for totems

...

A lot of us play pubs or community servers where other random people pop. If it were for were-forms or old were-beaver to lose all inventory and backpack as in single-player, you would be picked clean by random passer-byes - already there was this problem with chopping wood as werebeaver, when 1-2 players nearby started/followed you taking your chopping for themselves, sometimes even insulting you for demanding the wood back after reverting.

Ok with the rest though ..in some capacities.

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44 minutes ago, maciu67 said:

We have to wait for Woodie's real rework.

That would imply that we can also pray for the reworks of other characters that didn't go so well. Guess we'll wait to wait another 5 years. No character in the refreshes was changed after the refresh release so I don't think Klei will change anything.

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5 minutes ago, Sketched_Philo said:

That would imply that we can also pray for the reworks of other characters that didn't go so well. Guess we'll wait to wait another 5 years. No character in the refreshes was changed after the refresh release so I don't think Klei will change anything.

Winona had her crafting downside changed after her launch.

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6 minutes ago, Sketched_Philo said:

That would imply that we can also pray for the reworks of other characters that didn't go so well. Guess we'll wait to wait another 5 years. No character in the refreshes was changed after the refresh release so I don't think Klei will change anything.

The fact that the general reception for this rework ranges from "meh" to "really really bad", I don't have a doubt in my mind that Klei will change Woodie for the better. 

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58 minutes ago, Ogrecakes said:

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Such a shame really, I have seen so many good suggestions and ideas from the community, looks like almost none of them were listened too. I mean based on the current state of each form its clear they never really understood WHY pre-rework Woodie was bad. The forms are definitely cute, but .... its like none of the issues of pre-rework woodie were even thought about at all..... What is the point of reworking characters like this? There is ZERO room for feedback and now yet another character has wound up below average and onto the live servers. So far none of the reworks have really.... fixed the character or made them more fun to play.... Of course they are better than they were pre-rework for the most the most part, just still better off swapped out for a more fun/viable character, WHICH AGAIN, what's the point of reworking them if that is going to happen.

It's just disheartening that these EXTREMELY obvious problems got overlooked.  It makes me wonder.. are.... these things even tested or have more thought put into them other then "oh yeah that would be neat!"..?  Again, the transformations all look nice, and the new music for each one is cute, but it is just... disappointing. Especially with how long awaited this rework is.

But yes, I'm sure they will tweak him, it just feels like this shouldn't have to happen every rework. It happened with Winona and her downside, Willow and her fire immunity, and Woodie with his... practically everything.

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I told myself if this rework was bad, I was going to make a huge post like I had done in prior times complaining about Woodie/Werebeaver.  But, while the realization that they messed this up still catches up to me, I'll settle for comments on other people's posts.

Where to begin, where to begin...

Well, let's split up all the parts of Woodie and take a look at them, then examine how they could be better.

1. Woodie Himself

Certainly the most boring of his parts conceptually, but the most effective overall.  Woodie without his log meter means he gets to keep all of his product without the log meter, so he basically got buffed pretty nicely.  But without the downside of eating wood, Woodie has officially become better Wilson.  Congratulations Woodie!  But yes, there's literally nothing else to say here, as Woodie himself is just Wilson that chops trees really fast, which is boring.  Now, onto the semi-optional debuffs!

2. Goose Form

Literally useless.  Being able to move around as fast as a hound for less than a minute at best at the cost of all your hunger + the sanity and health cost of using a totem is such an awful tradeoff.  It doesn't even swim, which I find incredibly ridiculous, I mean, both beavers and moose are known for swimming, but if anyone should've been able to swim, it should've been the goose.  But no, instead it does nothing but move fast for a very short amount of time.  Overall, goose is pointless, avoid it always.

3. Beaver Form

The best combatant out of the three, what Werebeaver makes up for not being able to hit hard, his slightly above average speed and much faster attack speed make him suitable for usage in close-range fights against weaker opponents.  His harvesting skills are pretty good, but the amount of time you get to use it for, along with the full hunger drain and health and sanity costs basically makes it not worth using at all.  Woodie already chops down trees plenty fast, and since beaver got nothing new in his kit this update except not being able to extend his transformation time, the already mediocre Werebeaver got nerfed.  Sad!

4. Moose Form

The second best combatant of the three transformations by proxy of being 1 of 2 able to fight at all, the moose form is based around fighting.  However, due to short performance time, the moose is better off avoided.  Sure, you can use it to tank a hard-hitting enemy, but once you go through that nice transformation back to Woodie very shortly, whatever you were fighting will take that sweet animation time to kill you, so no worries if you were concerned with surviving.  Even if you do survive the initial turn back, the grogginess applied to you should let the big boss whack you once or twice more, so you should be dead by then.  This also hasn't mentioned that you'll lose all your hunger as well, so you'll be taking damage until you can get away from your target to eat food, not also mentioning getting your armor back on and dealing with grogginess as well.  In total, avoid this one too!

5. Woodie as a Whole

Woodie is faster-woodcutting Wilson with a permanent tier 2 beard,  a permenant axe, and the ability to befriend useless animalmen for slightly longer.  In order to balance this straight upgrade from Wilson out, Klei nerfed one and made 2 new were-forms Woodie would be tempted to use for the possibility of "fun" and "utility", but each one is a trap to bait Woodie into losing his all hunger and some health and sanity, along with giving no satisfaction at all for using them.  Therefore, if Woodie doesn't want to drain his food supplies (possibly shared with teammates), keep losing health and sanity, and wasting some random ingredients he could use elsewhere, Woodie must stay away from using his wereforms.  While this is unavoidable on a full moon, you just sort of deal with it, and that's that.

6. Where Did It Go Wrong?

Oh god, this is the hard part.  Then again, a harder question would be "Where did it go right?", because the answer to the former is all of it.  Woodie's previous problem is that his DST counterpart paled in comparison to DS Woodie.  DS Woodie had an excellent beaver mode, which provided locomotion, attack strength, and harvesting ability, along with weather resistance and night vision.  Woodie in DST, on the other hand, had a ****ty beaver, and was compensated marginally with planting pine cone sanity and slightly longer befriending times.  The issue here primarily was that he was depthless; Werebeaver was something you got out of immediately to avoid punishment, and everything else was just being a better Wilson overall.  As a Woodie main myself, I wanted the beaver to be more useful while adding more depth to using it since the beaver had no threats outside of no healing, temperature and nightmare creatures, but such threats were annoying and not fun to deal with in the slightest.  Instead, Klei made the beaver even more useless while adding 2 more useless transformations on top of it all, but removed the log meter.

So, the whole "Avoid the beaver" thing is more extreme than before, and it's also easier to do so.  I guess the only people who won with this update were those who enjoyed solely playing as Woodie.

7. How Do We (Klei) Salvage This?

I'm just going to make a bulletpoint list of things which might make this more fun in the slightest.

- Let us extend the timer further for the transformations.  My idea is that certain actions in a wereform let you regain amounts of meter while also making the meter drain slower.  Therefore, it is up to the player to make sure they're able to keep the transformation up for as long as they need, while also not overextending it too much where turning back becomes a problem.  If they want to stay as a were-animal, they shouldn't be directly punished if the forms are designed well-enough, as there should be some weakness to each one.  I also personally don't think said weakness should be being unable to heal, as there's no working around that, and no room to grow in skill, it's just a mindless limit.

- The forms need more.  Werebeaver isn't in a good spot but is in the best spot.  Goose needs a lot more (let it swim and attack, preferably at the same time) Moose could be okay if you could extend the timer like above, as it's combat style might have some sort of skill-based factor to it.  I couldn't tell you right now, because the transformation doesn't last long enough to test it out.

- Woodie himself needs a downside outside the forms.  Right now, always being regular Woodie has no downsides and is an upgrade to Wilson, which is very poor game design.

- Alternatively, scrap the the two new forms and just work on getting Werebeaver right.  If you're really proactive, you can add the other forms back some other time.

This list is a very basic starting point to work off of, to get something really good would require more time investment.

8. Ending Thoughts

I've been waiting for this rework for 3 or 4 years, I don't remember anymore.  I was excited when they started, because I was finally going to get what I've been asking for for a very long time now.  People warned me it wasn't going to be good, but I put good faith in Klei to deliver on this one thing.  However, as of now, I'm not playing this character ever again until it gets fixed.  Woodie was my main, but now he's either a boring, better Wilson or a food-draining nightmare, and I'm certainly not playing that.  Overall, I'm starting to doubt if Klei has the capability to put out quality content nowadays, as everything they've done since porting ROG to DST outside of the events has felt lackluster.

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15 minutes ago, Mario384 said:

since beaver got nothing new in his kit this update

Pretty sure this is new:

23 hours ago, JoeW said:

Werebeaver no longer spawns Treeguards and Poison Birchnut Trees

15 minutes ago, Mario384 said:

However, due to short performance time, the moose is better off avoided.

Moose has the same transformation time as Beaver. In fact, it seems to be currently bugged and apply the moose buff to the time while fighting—ie. fighting delays the transformation drain.

EDIT: Oh hey, looks like they disabled the forum easter egg that turned "moose" to "goose". Makes sense considering, but a bit of a shame.

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21 minutes ago, Mario384 said:

I told myself if this rework was bad, I was going to make a huge post like I had done in prior times complaining about Woodie/Werebeaver.  But, while the realization that they messed this up still catches up to me, I'll settle for comments on other people's posts.

Where to begin, where to begin...

 

I absolutely agree with everything here, But I could not help but giggle due to the fact I read all of this in Mario's voice. :wilson_ecstatic:

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1 hour ago, Sketched_Philo said:

That would imply that we can also pray for the reworks of other characters that didn't go so well. Guess we'll wait to wait another 5 years. No character in the refreshes was changed after the refresh release so I don't think Klei will change anything.

Except winona

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1 hour ago, Crimson Chin said:

But yes, I'm sure they will tweak him, it just feels like this shouldn't have to happen every rework. It happened with Winona and her downside, Willow and her fire immunity, and Woodie with his... practically everything.

Sorry for being pedantic, but Willow's perks were announced before the release, then the fire immunity added before the refresh was officially released. Even a change like Willow's (and Winona's, special thanks to everyone who replied to me with "Winona") was very very minor and Klei's development team is resistant to change. Unfortunately with the way things are being done there is not much room for change and the current Woodie design seems to need some BIG changes to be adequate.

On another note, I'm genuinely wondering WHY Klei kept the details of the transformations so vague. With the Warly, Willow and Wormwood refreshes , the developers were open about all the changes they were intended and the community provided ample criticism and room for change before the release. I feel being vague absolutely hurt such a...mishandled refresh.

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1 minute ago, Sketched_Philo said:

Sorry for being pedantic, but Willow's perks were announced before the release, then the fire immunity added before the refresh was officially released. Even a change like Willow's (and Winona's, special thanks to everyone who replied to me with "Winona") was very very minor and Klei's development team is resistant to change. Unfortunately with the way things are being done there is not much room for change.

But they never got so much critisism for a charakter refresh. So we will see. You can buff the forms of woodie with just some more small changes. The biggest work are the graphics/animations and the programming for the forms (and of course the animated short). We are just speaking of some changes in code, like replacing numbers. See it as some smaller bug fixes.

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I'm easy to please, I'm usually happy about everything Klei puts out, but this really disappointed me. 
I feel absolutely nothing about this besides "whatever".

And as much as I love seeing a new animatic... no lore? I HATE complaining about this sort of thing, but I mean... it's what EVERYONE wanted the most, and it's what we've come to expect from these trailers. This felt more... Wortox-y or Wormwood-y (HEH. WORMWOODIE) than the other videos, we learned... uh... nothing.

This really hurt, I really love Woodie and I just wish he'd be a beyond mediocre character.

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3 hours ago, Ogrecakes said:

Even the animated short was underwhelming, no story, strange artstyle, and isnt representative of Woodies new playstyle.

the art was nice but I agree with you on the no backstory part, I was so hyped for at least a glimpse of him before the constant.

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imo: I stand by that Woodie should have strong perks i.e speed & regeneration at night to encourage exploration and activity like Abigail's nocturnal strength encouraging combat at night, and offset by something like being unable to regain sanity when Lucy is not equipped or something more specific like decreased buffs from meals and preferring foraged ingredients

As for the transformations: I think they should be triggered randomly with eating wood instead (and living logs in the totem recipe) to fit with WOODie's theme more considering it was absolutely not explained why monster meat was relevant to Woodie and it makes transforming the much easier and less punishing especially with the forms as they are.

Transforming should have a sanity debuff but nothing more imo, similar to summoning Abigail, and should be extended by something consistent and easy to understand across all three forms, like eating wood or equipping Lucy. Also reverting to Woodie should leave you at 25% hunger and not immediately punish you with starvation health loss.

(also still havent tested but as 'locomotion' Moose should be able to speed carry heavy stuff like statues imo)

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2 hours ago, Mario384 said:

 

7. How Do We (Klei) Salvage This?

I'm just going to make a bulletpoint list of things which might make this more fun in the slightest.

- Let us extend the timer further for the transformations.  My idea is that certain actions in a wereform let you regain amounts of meter while also making the meter drain slower.  Therefore, it is up to the player to make sure they're able to keep the transformation up for as long as they need, while also not overextending it too much where turning back becomes a problem.  If they want to stay as a were-animal, they shouldn't be directly punished if the forms are designed well-enough, as there should be some weakness to each one.  I also personally don't think said weakness should be being unable to heal, as there's no working around that, and no room to grow in skill, it's just a mindless limit.

- The forms need more.  Werebeaver isn't in a good spot but is in the best spot.  Goose needs a lot more (let it swim and attack, preferably at the same time) Moose could be okay if you could extend the timer like above, as it's combat style might have some sort of skill-based factor to it.  I couldn't tell you right now, because the transformation doesn't last long enough to test it out.

- Woodie himself needs a downside outside the forms.  Right now, always being regular Woodie has no downsides and is an upgrade to Wilson, which is very poor game design.

- Alternatively, scrap the the two new forms and just work on getting Werebeaver right.  If you're really proactive, you can add the other forms back some other time.

This list is a very basic starting point to work off of, to get something really good would require more time investment.

 

Really hope someone from Klei reads this (preferably your whole post). I hope they can salvage the rework because ever since his nerf coming into DST, Woodie has not been the same. This was a highly anticipated one that failed to deliver. I think one of the more frustrating things about it for the players is that the rework has some glaring issues that could have easily been caught beforehand. Idk what kind of testing is done internally but some of the criticism (the constructive ones, not the rants) could have been addressed before hitting live. 

I think some of the concept is cool, but some of it gives the me the "who asked for this?" feeling. I love the game and I just hope the rework can be tweaked, cuz as it stands now I can say I'm thoroughly disappointed. 

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What if Woodie’s transformations didn’t go down nearly as fast, and doing things in his transformation (except goose) would increase the meter. He could go out of the curse at will if activated by a totem and his hunger would be set to the % of his food before transformation (to not use the curse as an easy way of filling food.) For example, you have 20 hunger and transform, get the meter to 50 and then transform back, your hunger would be 10. This would make him not an absolute food guzzler and his transformation would be able to be maintained to actually do something.  For full moon, you just have permanent random transformation the whole night. Mighty downside but at least it’s not tanking his hunger for using him to his potential

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1 hour ago, bitcrushed_rage said:

And as much as I love seeing a new animatic... no lore? I HATE complaining about this sort of thing, but I mean... it's what EVERYONE wanted the most, and it's what we've come to expect from these trailers. This felt more... Wortox-y or Wormwood-y (HEH. WORMWOODIE) than the other videos, we learned... uh... nothing.

 

4 hours ago, Ogrecakes said:

Even the animated short was underwhelming, no story, strange artstyle, and isnt representative of Woodies new playstyle.

Weird_Woodie.thumb.png.d0e3d165f7dae9105ae57732f2f52795.png

Well I´m agreed with that, I was waiting a video with some explanation or small clues about Woodie´s backstory, like the previous ones (the origin of Wortox, the born of Wormwood, the old life of Warly, etc.), and, we got a "fight scene"? Nothing about the curse´s nature ("Why he transforms in beaver exactly?"), Lucy or how he was put in the Constant? Kinda strange...

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The more I think about it the more I don't like how "cheap" his form is to get and how short (and impractical, but that's beside the point) they are. 

 

Since these forms are woodies main gimmick, they should be more special for the player to achieve, they should have significant downsides but be rewarding and unique to use. Right now it's like meh 2 mm and some grass and you get a log suit and a hambat for one minute(except your slower and can't heal and...etc), or you can move faster than a walking cane for 30 seconds. Like the mooses charge is a cool thing but I'd wish they expand on unique abilities for these forms more. Make it cost 4 living logs and a gem or something that's pretty inconvenient to get without farms.

 

I'd much rather these forms be more expensive, and be much more interesting to use when you actually can afford to transform, while the main experience is woodies human form.

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The rework wasn't too bad personally. Woodie can still gather faster than basically anyone, unless you're the kind of Maxwell to spam out loggers at all times, which quite frankly isn't super viable. The were-forms, at least in practice, are supposed to be either randomly activated or intentionally used when you need them, hence the point of the idols. You don't need them to last super long if you are actually trying to use them for either express purpose. Yes, some of them are very limited, as the goose cannot attack, the moose can't really run, and the beaver is, at least in my opinion, sort of pointless for most anything. However, nobody considered, apparently, that maybe that isnt the purpose of everything. The goose is highly useful early game, as you want as many people as humanly possible scouring the map for literally everything. Your army of scouts can map out the entire area in a few idols, depending on the number of scouts you have. Running faster than a runner beefalo is not laughing matter, you guys. Moose form is a bit under, yes, but you shouldn't just be using it all willy-nilly. You have to know when a situation is worth using near-dark sword damage. Of course, I on't think it can kite very well against tougher foes, so if anyone wants to get into the realm of fighting bosses as moose woodie, be my guest. The Beaver, however, does very similar things to normal Woodie, minus the free "shovel". Beaver form is as gathery as woodie gets, since it cuts on shovel and axe crafting, or even using lucy. Also, default Woodie, while he technically falls under the OP scale now as just a baseline, and you can easily nullify any were-based downsides via caves, he will is trumped by Wilson in insulation. Woodie has a significantly less insulation value than Wilson can acquire, which is Wilson's only upside as a character. Granted, this is highly nullified by crafting insulation items, but Wilson still needs less to survive winter. More treeguards is entirely pointless until later on, but when it kicks in it works out quite fancifully. Although, unless you are great at managing poison birchnut trees, be prepared to say goodbye to trail mix late-game. Plus, in my quite humble opinion, magic is unecessary to survival. The short, though, feels more like a fan animation over anything of value. This could be intentional, and most people aren't picking up on anything on purpose, but it feels a bit off that there is no real lore. Maybe Woodie will get his day sometime, but for now, we have nothing.

Overall, the rework is perfectly fine, makes Woodie a more useful character, but it feels like a Willow sort of thing, where the best upsides don't tie in to the main focus of a character.

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