What were peoples problems with the old "Freeze when Insane" Willow downside?

[Scrimbles]

I'm curious as to why people generally disliked it, to me it added threat to insanity, and forced you to be more conscious about your clothing, pre-building fires, or maybe forcing you to light things up to stay alive when insane.

Kinda got across the point of a Pyromaniac character, without using the single player downside of just dropping a random fire at your feet, which isn't that effective of a downside outside of pranking new players and annoying their teammates.

I'm wondering if there's some context I'm missing, like maybe Willow not being too great so it felt like an extra harsh nerf, or if the specific numbers behind it were REALLY bad.

 

(Also if anyone happened to have an archived build of the game that included this iteration of Willow I would GREATLY appreciate it!)

[Harrowick]

I think it stemmed from not only taking Willow's complete fire immunity away, but also making her freeze to death if she wasn't always gaining sanity. The fires that would also kill you if you stood too close. Willow gets the most out of fire sanity if she's super up close. Which would kill her if you remained too long.

It was just sort of an annoying chore to deal with if you weren't watching your sanity.

[ArubaroBeefalo]

i think the new one fits more than loosing termperature when insane

[Viktor234]

30 minutes ago, Lumberlocke said:

I think it stemmed from not only taking Willow's complete fire immunity away, but also making her freeze to death if she wasn't always gaining sanity.

Her old penalty did not really make her freeze to death and it was actually useful to stay insane during summer to avoid overheating as Willow. It was also not annoying to handle it during winter or spring since you anyway had to burn something over time to avoid freezing, and there were enough trees to burn there.

A case where her penalty was annoying to handle was when you went Ruins as Willow. Down there were no trees nearby to burn, you stayed insane 24/7, and due to your insanity, your temperature dropped to 1°. And as soon as the first droplet appeared or the temperature dropped below 0, you just started freezing.

[Electroely]

5 hours ago, Viktor234 said:

Her old penalty did not really make her freeze to death and it was actually useful to stay insane during summer to avoid overheating as Willow. It was also not annoying to handle it during winter or spring since you anyway had to burn something over time to avoid freezing, and there were enough trees to burn there.

There was an update before the rework that made her insanity freezing less harsh, and before that she would actually freeze to death any time of the year (save for summer) if she was insane enough. Also, I don't think the freezing effect was ever actually strong enough to be helpful during summer. You still needed cooling gear if you wanted to make it past the first days of summer heat. Also, you don't normally have to burn stuff in spring to avoid freezing because umbrellas and eyebrellas exist. After the aforementioned update, in most cases just a drop of wetness would push Willow into freezing temperature (if she was insane enough), which was a pretty big nuisance (since this could happen during autumn as well as spring).

I think what made the trait so widely disliked is that it was the only downside that directly punished players for being insane (when insanity is usually a double-edged sword), that it punished by taking away health with no compensation (the only other character whose downside takes away health in a similar manner is WX, and the amount of health lost from that is tiny and much easier to avoid), and that it was on a mediocre-at-best character. She had no fire immunity, and Bernie didn't turn big like he does now, so she largely played the same as Wilson with a really annoying downside.

For reference, here's the update I mentioned:

 

[Bird Up]

I miss that feature. Id much rather have it back than Willow's extra damage from coldness and less innate insulation. Her changes gave her a bigger downside, but Bernie became much better plus a few other changes.

[OMGkawaiiAngel]

Farming nightmare fuel was hard. 

[Bird Up]

Weird misconception but Willow would never freeze if insane during Autumn, unless it was also raining. Willow would still overheat in summer when insane, so I don't know much it really mattered. Winter was easy as insulation and thermal stones totally offset the insanity freeze, but early spring rain would cause freezing easily. It sounded like a big downside on paper but really wasn't at all. I mained Willow before the rework.

[MondayNight]

I was a Willow-main before her update and still am. As such I don't really find any problem in playing as her then or now. Considering I love to go on Mid-Winter or Mid-Summer servers for survival sake (plus I nomad as preferred play-style) I can't say am a representative player to be bothered by her downsides (before or after update). I've easily adapted and am ok. I consider her being better now on account of BERNIE! as an efficient NF farmer. Indeed now is a bit more comfortable to rush Ruins first autumn and sit there a lot longer, even when Winter comes if already prototyped a Thermal Stone and/or have materials to do so. I don't use any Winter gear aside Thermal. When going yellow, I can just light-up whatever is closest (usually trees) sit there till almost 70* on character and Thermal bright Orange then go merry on my business (and to keep Isolation usually use only Head-slot items like Beef Hat or Tam O'). As others stated above, one problem with "freezing when insane" was occasional moisture - yet nothing that cannot be by-passed by planning-ahead (mentioned prototyping of Thermal Stone and setting something close on fire, careful though to not mass-burn useful resources). However one thing I disliked on old DS Willow in DST context was the "drop fire at feet when under 60 sanity" aspect - a deal-breaker and cause for which Willow was so server-kicked in past: even as an advanced careful-planning nomad player it would still mean sometimes you could burn valuable resources and not being an efficient NF farmer - pretty punishing downside and detrimental to teams tending a base. Thus am content with her current rework.

And yes, is a matter of dispute if "being insane" should be "very punishable" downside and how this should translate in game-play. Perhaps OP feels like old DS Willow downside should be a template for all characters.

 

One question I personally have for op: what is your stance on mega-bases and elaborate bases with decorations? Should this be an aspect integral to DST game-play in accordance to its Sandbox facet or should be actively discouraged by the Survival side? (aka "very punishable" character downsides discouraging players from going too much into mega/elaborate base building)