Winona shouldn't be forgotten!

[Sir Noel]

I love Winona, and I play her all the time! Though sadly the mark she left after her rework dropped was... well, unremarkable. It really makes me sad because I love to play as her, her upside of quick crafting is very handy throughout the game and catapults are really fun; the idea of a machine doing something for me is very appealing. Sadly, even with these upsides of Winona, it is very obvious that she still suffers from many problems that bring down her enjoyability as a character.

Winona has had three major issues for me since the rework:

• Winona's general purpose is there, but is not expanded upon as there is not much to the character.
• The catapult is still the only useful machine Winona owns. Oh and there's one other I think?
• Winona's downsides in general.

I am not going to be "fixing" Winona; instead, I would like to steer people into the right direction on how it could be done. Parts are in order.

Winona's Purpose: We should lay down of what gameplay changes Winona should even bring. To me, Winona should be a very powerful addition to a group, but at a cost. I like high resource high reward characters like Wurt and believe Winona is on that track. However, there is really only one resource that you need a lot of right now, rocks. This is not a bad thing and is very noticeable in groups, but the amount needed as of now for catapults is a tad bit too much. To attempt to not completely nerf this intense resource usage; I think instead of one resource being needed, rocks, it should be spread out to other resources; for catapults, maybe more twigs. And for other machines, spread those out as well. But not enough to make machines too easy to make. There is a delicate balance.

New Toys: This next part is as simple as this; Winona needs new machines. The ideas above are mostly for how Winona will change gameplay, which is important, but addressing those gameplay changes is equally as important. Now, Winona's Catapults are a great place to start to look at a base design for new machines as these are amazing to begin with. The catapults are very, very costly but give good reward. They allow for a base part of the game, grinding out large amounts of mobs, to be much easier. Perhaps going off of base parts of the game for new machines is the way to go; maybe new machines are made to be able to get basic resources easier. Or continue to go off her fighting capabilities and add machines that introduce a new convenience in fights. Perhaps single-target and multi-target focused machines? (Though these may be veering into a bit too specific.)

A Downside: As of now, Winona pretty much has no downsides. Now, having her eat everyone's resources is a decent step, but this is mostly her in the background downside. Having this be her main and only downside would be pretty boring for a character. Now, really in this part here there are so many ideas to be added here, but for me, a Winona downside(s) should not completely change the character, like only eating veggies/meats. Perhaps a more minor, but still glaring downside, such as monster characters not being able to interact with pigs/bunnies is more suitable. It could have something to do with her machines, her crafting speed, or maybe even the darkness? Again, many things could be added here.

And, well... that's mostly my peace on Winona. I'm not looking for Winona to be one of the best, I just want to see Winona as a fun character with some downsides and upsides that add something new to the players' experience! Anyway, these are to me how I think Winona should be viewed before adding new, big changes to her. A discussion on possible new Winona additions/changes/buffs/nerfs/etc is welcome!

[minespatch]

Not disagreeing. Revamped characters should get tweaks in the future as QOLs.

[Sir Noel]

5 minutes ago, minespatch said:

Not disagreeing. Revamped characters should get tweaks in the future as QOLs.

Definitely. Revamped characters are great but I’d love to see some changes to make them better. Nothing extreme or anything. I’m just very passionate about Winona tho lol

[minespatch]

Just now, UraniumXI said:

I’m just very passionate about Winona tho lol

As are others I've seen on this forum. Hopefully the devs will retool her later on for more mechanics. ROT's still very important but tweaks for fulfilment are nice too.

[ButterStuffed]

I don’t have much to discuss but something to add to the bin of suggestions.

Winona could reduce crafting cost by mass producing items. A new machine would become available that would allow reduced cost crafting only for science machine and below tier items. That or it could just become an innate trait of Winona.

If it was just an innate Winona trait it could activate after crafting the same item more than 3 times.

[Mike23Ua]

I thought Winona was a terrible character at first.. but then I discovered that her Trusty Tape can be used to repair Winter Hats, Thermal Stones AND Boat Leaks... so I now proclaim her as being the “Queen of Winter” and she’s the one character i would want with me on a Winter Boating Trip.

If I could ask for any tweaks to Winona.. it would be in expanding the uses of Trusty Tape- Winona could use it to repair burned structures for example giving her Mechanic trait some actual use.. and make her less of a pick and swap character.

The Way I see things is if Trusty Tape can ALREADY Repair Boat Leaks.. then they should toy with the idea of “Trusty Tape fixing things.” A little more.

[KeshS]

1 hour ago, Mike23Ua said:

Boat Leaks

Did you just say BOAT LEAKS?! She is now my go to charachter for ship travel from now on.

[ArubaroBeefalo]

Before reworking maxwell, wicked, wes, etc klei should rework this mess of character. Only useful to make boss farms which is pretty boring for some players

1 hour ago, KeshS said:

Did you just say BOAT LEAKS?! She is now my go to charachter for ship travel from now on.

Its the best thing she has. You dont need to waste tons of wood to repair the boat.

[Viktor234]

1 minute ago, ArubaroBeefalo said:

Its the best thing she has. You dont need to waste tons of wood to repair the boat.

Unlike her Tape, Boat Patches do also restore 50 health and are made out of one of the least useful ingredients in DST.

Meaning: If you rely on Boat Patches, you won't need to waste tons of wood/twigs to repair the boat.

[ArubaroBeefalo]

22 minutes ago, Viktor234 said:

Unlike her Tape, Boat Patches do also restore 50 health and are made out of one of the least useful ingredients in DST.

Meaning: If you rely on Boat Patches, you won't need to waste tons of wood/twigs to repair the boat.

I didnt know that. I used the tapes before the boat patch buff.

Then winona is even worst

[KeshS]

31 minutes ago, Viktor234 said:

Unlike her Tape, Boat Patches do also restore 50 health and are made out of one of the least useful ingredients in DST.

Meaning: If you rely on Boat Patches, you won't need to waste tons of wood/twigs to repair the boat.

It is not about that. It is about having another option to repair when you run out of patches. 

Ship slowly sinking flashbacks.

[ShadowDuelist]

I'm 100% with @Mike23Ua here, I think her tape was the biggest lost opportunity to make her an interesting to keep character. Its not bad as it is, but it could be so much more.

As for her catapults I wouldn't touch the costs really, catapults are already way too powerful to get a further decrease in cost, I would however add new machines to her, specially at least one only she can operate.

Spoiler

EG: A single portable catapult, self powered, that shoots faster, deals less damage, and can be deployed, and then taken with her in the inventory. It doesnt regenerate HP so it requires her tape to be fixed, consumes fuel (nitre maybe) and I wouldn't allow her to activate more than one at any given time. Bonus points if said catapult is actually a small catapult mounted over a tiny clockwork, although I wouldn't make it a follower, just maybe that it has tiny legs to move away when it is hit.

 

[Intrepidpioneer]

Respect, fellow Nona main

 

[Sweaper]

Her spotlight is great for cave dwellers where nitre and gems are plentiful so you can spam spotlights and make trails, too bad caves are terrifying to casuals and you ended up alone.

[ShadowDuelist]

24 minutes ago, Sweaper said:

Her spotlight is great for cave dwellers where nitre and gems are plentiful so you can spam spotlights and make trails.

I still think spotlights should only work when someone is within range, and its dark.

This was adressed by the devs, V2C on stream said they thought it would be too OP, but didn't scrap the idea entirely. Given how little spotlights are used, it's probably a good time to bring the discussion back to the table. Maybe with a tweak that it only works like that, if Winona is present in the world? Or maybe just her could turn spotlights on and off.

[Viktor234]

1 minute ago, ShadowDuelist said:

I still think spotlights should only work when someone is within range, and its dark.

I would enjoy it more if Spotlights wouldn't target you but rather nearby enemies, e.g. warning you from which direction the next hound is coming from or in the ruins where the next Clockwork is located at. While the light does protect you from Charlie, it's range ain't big enough to allow you to detect nearby danger sources, but it's big enough to see your enemy and to fight it without being hit by Charlie. Winona won't suffer too much from that change since she already takes a free hit from the dark, allowing her to stay longer in the darkness than the average character. If you want to negate the sanity drain, you might consider to drop a Lantern or to place down a Campfire.

[wigfrids hat]

1 hour ago, Viktor234 said:

snip

wait, wait, by free hit do you mean halved  damage or do you mean the first attack fails to do damage?? i didn't know she was less susceptible to the dark than other characters

[ArubaroBeefalo]

3 minutes ago, gaymime said:

wait, wait, by free hit do you mean halved  damage or do you mean the first attack fails to do damage?? i didn't know she was less susceptible to the dark than other characters

she recieve 0 damage from the 1st hit from the dark, the second do regular damage

[Viktor234]

5 minutes ago, gaymime said:

wait, wait, by free hit do you mean halved  damage or do you mean the first attack fails to do damage?? i didn't know she was less susceptible to the dark than other characters

What I actually meant is that Winona doesn't take any damage from Charlie's first attack in the darkness, e.g. if you enter darkness and Charlie strikes you once, nothing will happen, only her 2nd attack will damage you. Dodging Charlie's attack, entering light and then darkness again will allow you to dodge another attack from Charlie. And this feature might come more in use if her spotlights would actually spot the enemy instead of the player.

[wigfrids hat]

what i am hearing is that winona is a good character for beginners. she has free repair on some of the most useful items for new players and she gets more time to get into the light compared to others

 

why isn't anyone touting her as a fair option for first-time-players?

[Ryde]

I play and love Winona more than any other on this list. But I'll have to disagree. I find her in a decent spot as she is.

I'll be on the same page as you. Having machines do your work is very appealing and satisfying.

In Winona's purpose, you mentioned her strength in putting art in artillery and firepower. But then you went to touch more on her rock draining necessities.

I believe Winona's engineering skills demonstrated by her catapults display and excellent replacement to the old fashioned teeth trap against hound waves. Her flex tapes are an extremely cheap sewing kits and even as mentioned previously boat patches. Unlike sewing kits and boat patches however, the materials needed being 3 grass and one silk are materials you could always keep in your inventory for emergency crafting as grass is essential and silk only sacrifices one spot. It's a simple object, but never has not been useful.

 

As for new toys. There's a line where the gadget would be less of a gadget and more of a needed device. In the fact whatever she should be able to craft should be replaceable since a character should never be a must pick, and as it is some see Winona already as a temporary visitor to the constant. An automatic harvester rivalling lureplants for example would be great however it would be implemented. But for example an automatic dropped item looter would have only a finite orange amulet to rival it, and it either would have to be a very expensive and high fuel consuming looter, or to not exist at all.

 

Currently Winona's downside are the very slow crafting when she's hungry and her hunger drain upon crafting a new item. While it has a timer before she gets hungry again. It's still noticeable especially after transitioning to another character. I kid you not, Wigfrid and Walter took longer to starve than an average day as Winona. And of course as you already shed light on, her resource extensive craft when a Wolfgang could do the same or slightly less with a couple of meat stews. But I have to admit the fact her downside not forcing a specific playstyle is a primary reason I love this lady.

 

My verdict, maybe a boat upgrades would be a decent addition. But I have no problems or felt Winona lacking in any way currently.

[ShadowDuelist]

53 minutes ago, gaymime said:

why isn't anyone touting her as a fair option for first-time-players?

Winona can consume quite a bunch of food if you craft "as need arises" and don't pay attention to your hunger. High hunger needs become a problem for new players.

If someone tells me they just installed DST, I'd recommend to try it out with Wilson, Willow or Wendy. If they tell me they are starting to be comfortable at playing, still not great at kiting, but want to start killing bosses alone, then I'd recommend Winona.

[Harrowick]

Who?

[Mike23Ua]

47 minutes ago, gaymime said:

what i am hearing is that winona is a good character for beginners. she has free repair on some of the most useful items for new players and she gets more time to get into the light compared to others

 

why isn't anyone touting her as a fair option for first-time-players?

Because her hunger drain makes her a death trap for new beginner players? 
When I first played Winona I was starving every 3 minutes, because my General Playstyle is to rely heavily upon the use of spears and tools.. (not knowing that each time I craft something Winona goes on Hunger Strike) She is NOT an easy character to play at all...

But what she is, is a MECHANIC without a single trait that makes it FEEL like your playing as a Mechanic.. and that saddens me deeply.

As for the Spotlight, It should auto target the players who are FURTHEST Away from it and most importantly to Note... Without a LIGHT SOURCE? Why??? Because I actually had a Wurt player die one time in my server trying to hurry back to base before Charlie could kill her, only for the Spotlight that WOULD have saved her life to instead focus on the dumb Maxwell that was IN the base planting farm crops while holding a Lantern..

Telling Me that the Spotlight doesn’t need a “Auto Target Furthest player without light source” After I’ve experienced THAT? lol.

[Nooahz]

What i think is that Winona should be the only one to use her catapults. I mean, nobody is able to use walter SLINGSHOT but everybody can use a Fuc*** complex machine (????). That`s no sense. Thats actually what winona is, just a toy used to build her machines then switch back to previously character.