As a Winona Main...

[mirrormind]

Winona is unique in that she is the only character in DST history to get shafted design-wise twice. First they released her as an alt-Wilson despite the huge amount of hype surrounding her, then they “reworked” her by giving her two usable structures that don't even make her relevant since she can just make them and leave. Also the spotlight was terrible? Spotlight is terrible, they overhauled it too and it's still terrible.

I was even more disturbed at how awesome Wanda was considering that a tinker who fuses magic into their work sounds exactly like what Winona could of been. Now WX is getting a rework where they can build mechanical modifiers that act as self-buffs??? Multiple characters are now more Winona than Winona herself is. The developers clearly have engineer-related ideas they just don't want to give them to the original “engineer” character for some reason. And they just gave Wurt a bunch of changes, meanwhile Winona is still struggling to repair a stick with tape.

Anyways. My idea for a complete overhaul to her gimmick as a forlorn Winona main:

- Winona can craft faster than other characters, but each craft costs half a hunger point. When her hunger is low her crafting speed becomes that of other characters and no longer costs hunger. When her hunger becomes extremely low her crafting speed gets even slower.

- Winona can craft Tape that may be used to repair clothes or boat holes; as well as tools, armour and weapons albeit less efficiently.

- Winona receives less of a resource penalty when smashing structures, burnt or not, but also loses sanity if a structure nearby is on fire or destroyed.

- Winona can build the same structures as before. But her spotlight has a larger radius, turns off during the day and provides a sanity aura. She is now the only character who can figure out how to fuel her own generators (or perhaps other characters fuel her generators less efficiently).

- Winona can now build three new things. A slow auto-harvester made from ruins resources that gathers nearby resources, a magical crate made from lunar resources that can package up structures to easily relocate them, and a hefty wrench which acts as a hammer, pickaxe and weapon. The wrench has a random chance of dazing enemies struck by it.

- Winona's structures no longer auto-heal, but can now be repaired immediately with Tape. Her wrench can also be used to more slowly repair her structures for free. Winona comments on the durability of a structure when examining it.

- Winona's hunger drains slightly faster than other characters due to all the physical activity she does as a manual laborer.

- Winona can no longer dodge Charlie's first attack. How would Winona knowing Charlie, or even having fought Charlie as a child, give her any insight into dodging an attack that comes out of pitch black darkness and was made by a magical shadow entity. NO. Instead, Winona receives less health damage from Charlie due to Charlie holding back on hurting her own sister, but Winona loses twice as much sanity due to getting attacked by HER OWN SISTER.

 

Aight that's it. Honestly I'm hoping for just about any eventual changes that give her more thematic things she can do. I really hope if the forums make enough noise about it then changes might happen, it's ridiculous that Winona has been left in this state for so long. Since currently all Winona does that you only do as a Winona player is build catapults and refuel them. That's basically her whole identity is TRANSIENT CATAPULT GURL. She's like one of those bees that is born just to mate and die except Winona is born just to build catapults and die.

[Baark0]

5 minutes ago, mirrormind said:

She is now the only character who can figure out how to fuel her own generators (or perhaps other characters fuel her generators less efficiently).

no thank you, i quite like my bee queen and fuelweaver farms using catapults.

[mirrormind]

12 minutes ago, Baark0 said:

no thank you, i quite like my bee queen and fuelweaver farms using catapults.

So in the wake of this whole rework I typed up all you care about is that Winona being made more relevant to her own gimmick would inconvenience you as a player who only uses her as a transient catapult factory. Yeah. Amazing. Stuff like this is why I'm adverse to making posts at all.

[Juny Pear]

I'd love to see Winona get some more love personally.
I'm really into building and anything mechanical in games and it's sorta sad that she feels pretty lacking in those aspects to so many people, including myself.

While I don't really agree with a lot of your proposed ideas, I'd certainly not be opposed to seeing her receive both one or two new craftables as well as some sort of other passive ability that distinguishes her more from the other survivors. Simple and basic characters are absolutely valid, it's just that with how she currently works Winona feels too simple to me personally and has very little to stand on herself since her craftables work the exact same for everybody else.

[00petar00]

24 minutes ago, mirrormind said:

Winona's structures no longer auto-heal, but can now be repaired immediately with Tape. Her wrench can also be used to more slowly repair her structures for free. Winona comments on the durability of a structure when examining it.

 

24 minutes ago, mirrormind said:

She is now the only character who can figure out how to fuel her own generators

I am very much against this, catapults are really important for the rest of the characters, they just bring so much to the table and can outperform Houndius Shootius in many scenarios since they have splash damage, while Houndius has such an expensive recipe and you need to kill deerclops,Ancient Guardian and Fuelweaver so literally you can only obtain 1 per ingame year.

Also even if you have Winona on the server, once she leaves and you can't repair the catapults so they get destroyed.

This could work if klei added something similar to her catapults in the game that isn't impossible to obtain in large numbers, so they could make it cheaper for Winona while only she would be able to fuel her generators and her catapults could have more damage.

[Juny Pear]

3 minutes ago, 00petar00 said:

I am very much against this, catapults are really important for the rest of the characters, they just bring so much to the table and can outperform Houndius Shootius in many scenarios since they have splash damage, while Houndius has such an expensive recipe and you need to kill deerclops,Ancient Guardian and Fuelweaver so literally you can only obtain 1 per ingame year.

To be fair though, this does seem more like an issue in how the houndius works rather than her catapults.
Although I do agree fueling structures at least should remain something other characters can do, I can't say I'm too opposed to selfheal being gone in favor of a different system. [Provided said system isn't too punishing or costly to maintain.]

[loopuleasa]

33 minutes ago, mirrormind said:

Winona receives less of a resource penalty when smashing structures

This one is sadly abusable, since construction amulets makes crafts be 50% cost

[Well-met]

I like your ideas alot

[Mike23Ua]

I got a feeling over the next year, year and a half Winona is going to get some tweaks, same as Wurt & Wormwood have been.

I love to play as Winona, but her character in game doesn’t really portray the character she is in animated shorts: 

For example: In her Animated short we see her putting together clues to find her lost sister with a detective like board with links to each event, THEN we see her repair a portal that has been exploded with her trusty mechanic tools before being yanked into the constant by her sister Charlie.

I hope my gal Nona gets some tweaks in the future.

[GrapeVruit]

I always thought Winona would be more interesting to me if she got more gadgets to play with instead of a spotlight and a catapult, or if we're being honest, a catapult. I've had a few ideas and while they might not balanced, I feel it's better to get ideas out there first and then tweak them later.

Winona's Toolbox: A small, portable red Toolbox that can store up to 4 items.

Winona's Speedpad: A small circular boost pad placed upon the ground that increases movement speed by 50% for 10 seconds depending on the direction you left the Speedpad. Stopping in place or moving in the opposite direction will cancel the effect. The Speedpad goes on a cooldown for 15 seconds. 

The Vacuum Pack 3000: A mechanical 8 slot backpack that is able to suck up any items that are left on the ground, similar to the lazy forager. However, the more slots that are filled within the Vacuum Pack, it will decrease the wearer's movement speed by 15%. If you're looking to vacuum up certain items, such as rocks or logs, you can socket said item into the Vacuum Pack's finder slot. 

Winona's Sprinkler: A small sprinkler that is able to douse fires and water plants, though it does have less range and takes a little longer to get to burning objects than a Flingomatic.

Winona's Marvelous Multitool: An automated multitool that acts as an axe, pickaxe, shovel and a hammer. Unlike regular tools, Winona's multitool requires fuel, such as nitre or gold in order to function, and will passively drain said fuel until the tool's durability reaches 0%. When out of fuel, the multitool can still be used, but it take a lot longer to get chores done, similar to how much work Wes does. This tool can only be used by Winona.

 

[-Nick-]

For Winona, I just want klei to rip off Engineer from TF2. Like Engineer, Winona should be able to craft a stationary mini turret/catapult that can be dismantled and put into her inventory. It will be a low level target, but will have a small amount of health and damage.

Winona can use this mini turret to aid in combat. 

The turret will lose charge over time and will shut down. Winona would have to pick it up and refuel it in her inventory.

[GrapeVruit]

16 minutes ago, Nickolai said:

For Winona, I just want klei to rip off Engineer from TF2. Like Engineer, Winona should be able to craft a stationary mini turret/catapult that can be dismantled and put into her inventory. It will be a low level target, but will have a small amount of health and damage.

Winona can use this mini turret to aid in combat. 

The turret will lose charge over time and will shut down. Winona would have to pick it up and refuel it in her inventory.

I also wondered if they would give Winona something similar to Engineer's dispenser. Maybe it could be a portable chest that dispensed resources? I dunno, I kinda see Winona as a character who specializes in utility.

[Baark0]

1 hour ago, mirrormind said:

So in the wake of this whole rework I typed up all you care about is that Winona being made more relevant to her own gimmick would inconvenience you as a player who only uses her as a transient catapult factory. Yeah. Amazing. Stuff like this is why I'm adverse to making posts at all.

Yes.

[Ohan]

The good news is that as an engineer/handywoman in a crafting game winona has a lot more potential than just two machines and quickcrafting. Also Klei has come a long way since they started refreshing survivors with nona. The bad news is that Klei has a busy schedule and we have to be patient and see if they can make time for nona someday. hopefully sooner than later 

2 hours ago, mirrormind said:

a hefty wrench which acts as a hammer, pickaxe and weapon.

Ive always really liked the idea of giving nona a tool/weapon like this. It would be the perfect fit and give her a toy exclusive to her. I also like the idea to make it require fuel so they can actually make it powerful. Maybe she could make a charging station near one of her batteries for her multi-tool. 

When it comes to making her batteries only refuelable by nona i would think thats out of the question at this point. I dont switch characters so i never use catas as other survivors when im playing solo but other ppl being able to fuel her batteries is an intentional choice made by klei i think and it fits a multiplayer game. 

However, 

2 hours ago, mirrormind said:

nona's structures no longer auto-heal, but can now be repaired immediately with Tape. Her wrench can also be used to more slowly repair her structures for free. Winona comments on the durability of a structure when examining it.

I like this idea A LOT more when it comes to making Nona important to her own creations. Her structures really dont need to auto-heal when shes literally a tinkerer/engineer who has a unique craft for repairing stuff. Making the structures require maintenance from time to time that only a skilled builder can perform is the perfect way to keep nona meaningfully tied to her creations. 

I also like the idea of giving nona the ability to pack up her structures and move them like Warly and his cooking gear. 

—

In addition to ur spotlight tweaks id also appreciate it if multiple spotlights no longer focused the same person if there are several people around. 

[ArubaroBeefalo]

7 hours ago, mirrormind said:

Winona can no longer dodge Charlie's first attack. How would Winona knowing Charlie, or even having fought Charlie as a child, give her any insight into dodging an attack that comes out of pitch black darkness and was made by a magical shadow entity. NO. Instead, Winona receives less health damage from Charlie due to Charlie holding back on hurting her own sister, but Winona loses twice as much sanity due to getting attacked by HER OWN SISTER.

 

is not that winona dodges charlie's atack but that charlie doubts to atack her for a moment because recognise her

nice ideas, i like the change to her hunger crafting drain and that you suggest more toys (imo the thing that she needs the most).

But in my opinion we should stop taking in count celestial portal for character balance, is just a tool to mix perk or to play different characters when we want to, characters should be interesting enough so we want to play them for longer than just crafting their stuff and leave. Warly is a good example, sure a lot of people simply change to him to mass cook to make the game easier with their main but he is interesting enough and fun to be exclusively played

7 hours ago, mirrormind said:

So in the wake of this whole rework I typed up all you care about is that Winona being made more relevant to her own gimmick would inconvenience you as a player who only uses her as a transient catapult factory. Yeah. Amazing. Stuff like this is why I'm adverse to making posts at all.

why you care? you can have fun with her even if others just change to her for making her builds ._.

6 hours ago, GrapeVruit said:

I always thought Winona would be more interesting to me if she got more gadgets to play with instead of a spotlight and a catapult,

totally agree. Just see wagstaff in DS, has many tools that makes him fun to be played instead of just having a cheese catapult

[SecretPizzaMan]

10 hours ago, loopuleasa said:

This one is sadly abusable, since construction amulets makes crafts be 50% cost

How so.

[lakhnish]

Winona deserves a 2nd rework.

When her rework initially came out, I said her perks made her primarily a swap and dump character.

And as we're approcahing the end of all of the character reworks, this is unfortunately still true and people have caught on to it.

Heck, I'd say that the slow crafting downside feels so much better on Wanda than it does for Winona.

Almost every other character rework since then has character longevity to them imo (even Warly since he's is still fun to play long-term imo, even if people primarily just want his spices and volt goat jelly).

If Wolfgang can get a second rework, then so can Winona.

[SinancoTheBest]

As a Winona main myself, I do like some of the ideas here and hope to see improvements made to Winona and all the rest of the already reworked cast in the coming updates. That said, I don't think having build-n-switch perks is a bad prospect for her, she'd just benefit from additional content that she can do so even if players can switch to her to build her perks and switch to someone else, players actively playing as Winona can benefit from, such as her ability to tell apart Wagstaff's tools, which is a great first step in making her more unique. More little stuff like that such as the ability to fix burned structures and damaged gear with trusty tapes when playing as her would go a long way.

I've always been against the suggestions of making her structures only usable by her because that defeats quite a bit of the purpose in the first place; Winona players like building stuff that benefit the entire team even in their absence through builds like a panic area, boss support etc. therefore fueling the generators shouldn't be limited to her. However I like the idea that she's more efficient with fuel use so perhaps she might be able to fuel a generator to full with one nitre when all the other players need 2 nitres and a GEMerator with 2 gems (with each gem fueling GEMerator by 1.5) when all other players need 3 gems.

The hammer efficiency suggestion is also good, returning 75% of the materials for anything that's hammered- or perhaps even a built in efficiency with hammer like Mighty Wolfgang's tool use. However I think that should be an innate ability and not a character-specific item. At this point I think the game demands an improved version of the hammer item everyone can use so it'd be better if they add something in the lines of moonrock hammer into the celestial tab that is made with moonrocks and has 4x the durability like all the luxury tools.

As for her buildings, Catapults, Generators and GEMerators are in a good place but she could really use more mechanized structures and her spotlight should be improved. If the spotlight is made to only turn on at night and multiple spotlights targeted different people if 1+ people are in their range they'd be great. Many structures, items and character abilities already nullify the darkness that more functional spotlight wouldn't be unbalanced, even if they'd call for a more expensive crafting recipe.

As I bring them up at times, a third type of generators, the giant crop generators (or perhaps plantarators) would benefit her current and future buildings, especially improving her spotlights. They were already planned conceptually but got scrapped; ever since the RWYS update brought giant crops they yearn for a comeback and it'd add more versatility/functionality through a generator that's based on spoilage time of the inserted giant crops rather than the amount of socketed fuel.

Heat lamps for providing farm plants with light during night and in caves would also be a very welcome structure. 

Sprinklers would also be great, providing an alternative to flingomatics in extinguishing specific areas of the base and watering nearby soil, pairing well with spotlights and heat lamps to place in the middle of the base.

I find her current hunger downside alright so I don't think it needs to be lessened, it is a noticeable, characteristic but not so barring downside, fitting to her all rounder engineer status.

The gist of it is that Winona would benefit a lot from new structures even if they aren't specific to her use, expanding and maintaining catapults already provides a good reason to play as her continuously and if she is given multiple other useful structures there will be all the more benefits of having Winona players around. Switching of characters shouldn't be the main focus to balance around but there is benefit from expanding the innate perks and characteristics of characters too. At some point I think the celestial portal itself should be altered to disallow character switching without playing a certain amount of time like 20 days as the switched character.

[Cheggf]

You are a Winona main who hates Winona and has nothing good to say about her?

7 hours ago, ArubaroBeefalo said:

is not that winona dodges charlie's atack but that charlie doubts to atack her for a moment because recognise her

Winona says she knows all of Charlie's moves when she dodges the attack.