Lunar Grimoire Rework

[QuartzBeam]

Figured I'd give my two cents on the whole Lunar Grimoire situation.

Personally, I think the Lunar Grimoire is really stepping on the toes of the Mysterious Energy and the entire questline that precedes it.

Thematically, we've had 2.5 years of build up to Alter's awakening and its effects on the moon cycle, which is severely cheapened by this random librarian suddenly being able to harness this eldritch god's power willy-nilly.

In terms of gameplay, the Mysterious Energy offered 3 things: global illumination, constant full moons (and the subsequent displacement of the moon cycle) and a chance to fight the Celestial Champion for its crown. And now Wickerbottom is uniquely capable of accessing 2 out of these 3 effects from very early on without jumping through any of the myriads of hoops every else has to. (Not to mention, it 

 

My Proposal:

Instead of somehow harnessing the power of Alter and altering (heh) the moon cycle to the reader's whim, the Lunar Grimoire should merely induce a localized replication of the full moon's effects on the Constant's flora and fauna.

That is, it won't affect the moon cycle in any way (and thus offer no global illumination either), but it will affect nearby Pigs, Sea Sprouts, Glommer's Statue, etc. like a full moon would, for a short time. And, as a bonus, poor Woodie can just keep his distance to avoid unprompted transformations.

[HowlVoid]

To be honest I think the full moons illumination is the only useful effect of the book that remains constant.

You can kill enough werepigs to last a whole year (or several) in a single full moon.

Krampus sacs are only needed one per person usually (this book isn't even the best for this).

Etc etc, I don't think it steps on Alters toes because he has his own rewards that are worth pursuing. I also feel a lot of people got over and done with the moonstorm as quickly as they could because they can be so destructive on big mega bases.

Spoiler

In a world we're it's either or, I think the reverse would be better where the ONLY effect the book has is moonlight (although I don't think the effects of a full moon are game-breaking). Then people can stop complaining about it being so OP. Although this would have the disadvantage that everytime you extend a full moon you extend the time you you have to wait for the true effects of a full moon (you'd have to wait for a full cycle). Perhaps because you are forcing the moon to be full, constantly depleting it's power, there isn't enough energy to activate it's side effects (werepigs, glommer, etc). 

Since this is about reworking the Lunar grimore I'll propose my idea once more. The lunar grimore simply replicates the previous day's moon phase. So if you want a full moon you always have to wait for a natural one to occur first. This limits how many full moons can occur initially because the number of books will be limited, so if you let the moon phase change you need to wait for the next one.

Additionally this allows for a few extra boons besides extending the full moon.

Extending a new moon

Preventing from either full or new moons from occuring by extending the phases in-between

This way Wicker isn't the one controlling the moon, but is instead at the mercy of the naturally occurring cycle. 

[Ohan]

54 minutes ago, QuartzBeam said:

cheapened by this random librarian suddenly being able to harness this eldritch god's power willy-nilly.

I think u could see it in a different way too. She comments how the knowledge gathered from the Archives was helpful in creating the grimoire. The ancients were on good terms with the moon during the archives era of their history right? 

So perhaps its less about Wickerbottom “forcing” the moon to do her bidding and more like she discovered a way to “communicate” with the moon the way the ancients did when they lived in harmony with the moon. 

I could be wrong about the ancients lore but this is how i choose to interpret the power of the grimoire. 

I dont have much more to say on the rest since its been talked to death at this point and its up to the devs to decide what they want to do

[Cheggf]

Why? 

[QuartzBeam]

23 minutes ago, Cheggf said:

Why? 

For The Greater Good.

[lakhnish]

7 hours ago, QuartzBeam said:

My Proposal:

Instead of somehow harnessing the power of Alter and altering (heh) the moon cycle to the reader's whim, the Lunar Grimoire should merely induce a localized replication of the full moon's effects on the Constant's flora and fauna.

That is, it won't affect the moon cycle in any way (and thus offer no global illumination either), but it will affect nearby Pigs, Sea Sprouts, Glommer's Statue, etc. like a full moon would, for a short time. And, as a bonus, poor Woodie can just keep his distance to avoid unprompted transformations.

Is it possible for just the effect of the full moon to only occur to prefabs within a certain range of Wickerbottom reading the book?

For example, any Pigs in a arbitrary tile range will turn into a Werepig, or any Vitreoasis' in range will have the chance to regrow moon glass when the book is read?

It would resolve a lot of issues with this book, no?

[QuartzBeam]

1 hour ago, lakhnish said:

Is it possible for just the effect of the full moon to only occur to prefabs within a certain range of Wickerbottom reading the book?

Well, I don't know if it's possible right now, but I've heard some of Klei's employees are pretty handy with Lua.

[Cheggf]

3 hours ago, QuartzBeam said:

For The Greater Good.

Unironically why? The good uses of the book like werepig farms would be unaffected so all this would do is nerf the silly meme thing where you use the book for light and you're tethered to the base since you have to go back every 2 days to get another book while draining huge chunks of sanity out of your brain. What is the purpose of making the full moon local? To nerf the already not so good light function of the book?

[MondayNight]

44 minutes ago, Cheggf said:

Unironically why? The good uses of the book like werepig farms would be unaffected so all this would do is nerf the silly meme thing where you use the book for light and you're tethered to the base since you have to go back every 2 days to get another book while draining huge chunks of sanity out of your brain. What is the purpose of making the full moon local? To nerf the already not so good light function of the book?

Localizing Lunar Grimoire's effects to let's say 1-screen distance actually helps players with desired effect they want for that particular read - since rarely you can multi-task in the small Full-Moon window, or need many actions associated with Full-Moon given you can read Grimoire next day as well. For example, if wanting a Star-to-MoonCaller conversion, you go beside Moon Pedestal, read after you have your settings up, et voila! No need to affect Moon Cycle or other players. Or want to farm Krampi via Glommer spawn - get beside its statue, read, acquire Glom flower. Simple and I reckon even more lore-friendly, since I don't believe Wickerbottom being that powerful to change the Moon Behemoth to its full phase (and what such act implies at astronomical level). Plus this will not affect players over the world (Woodies, people wanting to do Shadow Chess-pieces) in "trolling" manner-or-otherwise & the natural Lunar Phases/natural lunar counter, as stated. It brings a clear delimitation between Lunar Storms effect and Wicker's shenanigans. And, perhaps more importantly, can allow the inherent cost lowering from current Iridescent Gem requirement to something like 5-10x Moon Rocks/Glass + 5x Moon Moth + 2 Papyrus (or anything that isn't prohibitively-scarce in multiplayer context, often also a pretty competitive environment).

[Cheggf]

55 minutes ago, x0-VERSUS-1y said:

Localizing Lunar Grimoire's effects to let's say 1-screen distance actually helps players with desired effect they want for that particular read - since rarely you can multi-task in the small Full-Moon window, or need many actions associated with Full-Moon given you can read Grimoire next day as well. For example, if wanting a Star-to-MoonCaller conversion, you go beside Moon Pedestal, read after you have your settings up, et voila! No need to affect Moon Cycle or other players. Or want to farm Krampi via Glommer spawn - get beside its statue, read, acquire Glom flower. Simple and I reckon even more lore-friendly, since I don't believe Wickerbottom being that powerful to change the Moon Behemoth to its full phase (and what such act implies at astronomical level). Plus this will not affect players over the world (Woodies, people wanting to do Shadow Chess-pieces) in "trolling" manner-or-otherwise & the natural Lunar Phases/natural lunar counter, as stated. It brings a clear delimitation between Lunar Storms effect and Wicker's shenanigans. And, perhaps more importantly, can allow the inherent cost lowering from current Iridescent Gem requirement to something like 5-10x Moon Rocks/Glass + 5x Moon Moth + 2 Papyrus (or anything that isn't prohibitively-scarce in multiplayer context, often also a pretty competitive environment).

So the two reasons are "to stop changing the moon cycle" and "because Woodie is getting trolled". The moon becoming full doesn't inherently have to change the cycle and Woodie getting trolled is more of a Woodie issue and it's still present with moon storms even if Wickerbottom couldn't do this. If it really is a problem for Woodie give a fix to Woodie.