New Wickerbottom ROCKS!!!!

[lowercase skye]

Just wanted to add some positivity to the sea of negativity here on the forums and say I absolutely love how Wickerbottom works now! I've been playing her a lot since the rework and I'm in love with her mechanics.

The books in general are really nice for convenience, but one I don't think anyone has really talked about is the Grumble Bee book, which I love!! They're a little wonky ai-wise, but with them Wickerbottom has this really nice sort of gameplay where you barely have to fight anything on your own, but you constantly have to regain your sanity to prevent yourself from spawning shadows that the Grumbles CAN'T fight. It leads to some really neat gameplay like when on the ocean I'll find a Gnarwail and I can get my Grumbles to kill it for me, but I HAVE to make the fish meat into something like surf and turf because my sanity's constantly low (from both summoning more Grumbles, and using other books for different purposes.)
I've heard some people say it feels unfitting for Wickerbottom but I disagree, "minions" have always been a BIG part of this game (Pigmen were one of the first mobs ever!) and I think it's super nice that more and more characters are getting the ability to befriend different mobs to act as minions. Not to mention, Wickerbottom has always been able to summon tentacles to help her fight (which is WAY more useful with the addition of the bookcase!!)

Aside from that the other books have been talked to death, but I do wanna throw my opinion in and say I think they're all mostly fine balance-wise. A lot of talk here on the forums treats the sanity cost of full moons, stopping rain, tempering temperatures, etc, as a non-issue, however I can say from experience that even just a couple scattered uses of Wickerbottom's books make your sanity PLUMMET, and through a play session where I used cactus, green caps, surf n turf, flowers and more, it was still a constant struggle just to keep it up, even after getting my tam. The books ARE powerful, but they require an intense use of what is essentially a mana bar that starts stabbing you when it gets low, and I think that leads to super neat gameplay!

The bookcase is also really really really nice!! I've seen people want it to take active maintenance to restore book durability, and I would be fine with that as an option, but I think adding an active never-ending resource cost to Wickerbottom's books (even if it's a generic one for restoring all of their durability) would drag her back down to one of the worst aspects of her previous state... that being that you can use her books to speed up different tasks, but at the active cost of the resources to craft the books. If, say, repairing books at the book case required using a feather pencil and some nightmare fuel to do actively, you would be replacing every task that Wickerbottom speeds up with the task of gathering feather pencils and nightmare fuel.
You can speed up the task of tree farming with Applied Silvilculture, but you're replacing it with the task of killing crows, burning trees, and fighting shadow creatures. You can speed up the task of farming spiders via Apicultural Notes, but you're replacing it with the task of killing crows, burning trees, and fighting shadow creatures. You can speed up the task of crafting at an alchemy engine via the Everything Encyclopedia, but you're replacing it with the task of killing crows, burning trees, and fighting shadow creatures. Requiring an active cost to repairing Wickerbottom's books would just be adding a single task that Wickerbottom now has to do over and over to take advantage of her books, and I don't think that would feel good at all.

Overall I think Wickerbottom's in a really nice spot right now gameplay-wise. I hope that no major changes are done to her.

[dois raios]

As I said in some post, best rework ever

[Noaa]

I agree that the rework will make Wickerbottom more fun and interesting to play. Reading more often will mean more sanity management. And while sanity management is "easy" that Wickerbottom's sanity management cuts into her times and resources more often than most other characters. 

And yeah Wicker's book do have to do with studying and mastering the constant. So being able to summon Grumble Bees, a mob from the constant, is pretty fitting. 

[Pruinae]

Making a tentacle trap be like

Just Wickerbottom things

[Parusoid]

4 hours ago, Pruinae said:

Making a tentacle trap be like

Just Wickerbottom things

Gonna have to ask some Willows for bunch of bernies

[Ohan]

4 hours ago, meow meow meow said:

I hope that no major changes are done to her.

Aside from minor tweaks to the new books like arachno, the biggest change id personally still want for her is to the end is nigh.. i dont really even have a concrete idea myself. But its so lacklustre atm.

Its definitely a hard concept to make useful i can see that. 

Perhaps if the book is to remain fundamentally the same some kind of mechanic/item/structure could be added down the line that requires lightning to be fueled (no the tiny light radius of charged rods dont count lol). Which would mean wicker could make use of it more liberally than the other survivors who would have to use tele staff outside of spring. 

In the meantime i think its the most useless book? Even arachno in its current pitiful state is more useful id say.