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Final(?) thoughts about Wickerbottom refresh


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I don't know about you but I am satisfied with the current state of Wickerbottom refresh:

  • her downsides have been fleshed out - insomnia makes her immune to be forced to fall asleep and her hatred for food spoilage has been significantly more pronounced (she really won't eat spoiled food even if she's starving)
  • she got an additional downside of slightly lower maximum health (it could be even lower, but it's a nice touch)
  • she got another downside of spawning shadow creatures when reading and being insane (sadly some of them despawn after a while)
  • she got 11(!) new books:
    Spoiler
    • The Angler's Survival Guide - yet another food farming book, this time using ocean content with a really cheap recipe
    • Pyrokinetics Explained - cheap and renewable Luxury Fan creating free Fire Staves with each use (also a good expansion to The End is Nigh! which lost its purpose when WX-78 lost his interest in it in his refresh)
    • Overcoming Arachnophobia - quite a niche book, but after significant hotfix buff it might help killing some faster enemies or hordes of weaker foes and it can also be used to deal with Shadow Creatures spawned while reading other Books (when setting up a Tentacle Field or summoning Bees), because this magic web slows them down!
    • Tempering Temperatures - people say it's quite useless, but it can be used to quickly dry off and stop taking freezing/overheating damage after returning to base when you forgot to turn rain off in spring and had to fight when it started, or when you summon rain in Summer and have to take off your insulating clothing for some reason - you return to your base, read this book from your Bookcase and are fresh as a daisy
    • Lux Aeterna - I find this book quite underwhelming, plus its name is misleading for a 4 minute "eternal light" but it allows crops to grow at night and is just a prologue to Lux Aeterna Redux
    • Practical Rain Rituals - power of switching rain on and off at hand for a really low price and whole 5 uses is an incredible tool, I agree there should be a way to somehow summon rain that wouldn't be tied to just two characters (even moslings "bug" was an interesting way of doing that until it was fixed [sadly]) and maybe the introduction of this book is the first step to such thing, turning rain off should probably remain a Wickerbottom's shtick though
    • Lunar Grimoire - most people overvalue this book or just like calling "OP" everything new, it's a good tool for fights like Eye of Terror and Twins of Terror as well as some freedom over time management but other than that having a Full Moon for 1-3 minutes for the cost of 50 sanity isn't that game-breaking (I had made this book with just 2 Moon Rocks and used it just a couple of times; increasing its price to take so much effort and possibly griefing public servers by ignorance is not the best decision but it's understandable after reading some rants about how op "FREE LIGHT EVERY NIGHT" is or how it can grief the game for Woodie players, but it's really like arguing that Torches should be nerfed because they can start a fire: if you play with a friend this book can empower Woodie's curse, but if you play with jerks and think they will try to abuse your curse either don't pick the only character with such curse or stop playing with jerks...)
    • Apicultural Notes - awesome book which I totally didn't expect, great for everyday assistance as well as some of the hardest bosses (most notably Crabking, but they also MELT Dragonfly, Ancient Guardian, Antlion, Moose Goose, Treeguards and Spider Queens), the book itself is cheap and having 4-5 in your Bookcase allows you to summon 16 deadly Grumble Bees for just ALL of your Sanity, but they are worth it; this book got a lot love in hotfixes, but Bees will still kill your Polly Roger on sight, they will despawn if you go to the second shard server and they buzz quite loudly (this book is probably my second most favorite thing about this refresh)
    • Horticulture, Expanded - an upgrade to Horticulture, Abridged but it has only 3 uses instead of previous 5, it's great for growing crops for some extra seeds though
    • The Everything Encyclopedia - a neat starting tool for some later acquired items like Dark Swords, its uses should be probably expanded to include crafts from stations like Tackle Receptacle
    • Lux Aeterna Redux - poor man's Star Caller's Staff which doesn't provide heat, mostly useful to grow crops during night or down in Caves because 2 uses usually won't provide enough light for a whole boss fight arena

     

  • she got new reading animations for all of her books and most of them look incredibly good (like On Tentacles, those animations are probably the highlight of this refresh for me)
  • she got a Bookcase able to contain all of her Books, which works like an Alchemy Engine also restoring durability to all of her books, indirectly buffing all 6 of her already existing books (most notably Applied Silviculture and On Tentacles)
  • she also got a cute idle animation

At this point I am done with all discussions about Lunar Grimoire (I'm sad it went from 1 to a 100 in one hotfix but I'm at peace with its current state) and I only await Wickerbottom's Animated Short and her new Skin Set (out of 12 OG DST characters she's currently tied with Maxwell for the least Skin Sets at 11, for comparison Winona has 15).

Edit: since this topic came to life again I updated it with my thoughts regarding recent changes in a comment down below :3

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Afterword

Are you pleased with the current state of the Wickerbottom refresh?

If so what is the highlight of this refresh for you?

If not what one thing would you change about it, given such power?

Spoiler

And why is it this cursed Lunar Grimoire?? Let it go!

image.png.b16d0fb90bce11a5a593e0fa4ae236ed.png

 

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4 minutes ago, Sapientis said:

Are you pleased with the current state of the Wickerbottom refresh?

Im okay with how things currently are. Except for the horticulture point (im fine with the hort books) i think this thread by Noaa encapsulates perfectly the last finishing touches that this refresh needs. 

 

6 minutes ago, Sapientis said:

If so what is the highlight of this refresh for you?

I also really love all the new reading animations my personal favorite is silviculture. The roots descending from the book and spreading into the ground looks so cool. 

idk if i could concretely pick out only 1 thing though. I really like A LOT of the stuff thats been done. All things considered this has to be one of the best refreshes.

Just have to not let the beta forums sour it any further lol.

12 minutes ago, Sapientis said:

If not what one thing would you change about it, given such power?

Out of the few points in Noaa’s thread i think id be forced to pick changing the End is Nigh! If i could only pick one thing. Its the least useful book out of the bunch. 

Its a hard concept to make useful i get that..  but right now its just a crafting ingredient for Pyrokinetics. 

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I think this refresh is fantastic!

Wickerbottom was my first main in DST, but I swapped off after the RWYS nerf to Applied Horticulture. Not because of the 10 crop limit though, because of the recipe being quintupled in price (yeah I'm stingy, sue me). Bookcase solved that! And to top it off, we got a bunch of real fun books too!

I was so worried she was gonna get the Wolfgang/WX-78 treatment where her mechanics were taken away, jumbled around and spit back, but that wasn't the case at all. Keeping her core design of "oops, you're insane" and iterating further upon it by spawning additional nightmare creatures was a great design choice imo.

Biggest highlight for me was the bookcase. Needing to craft a bajillion books for a farm setup was always pretty annoying, this gets around that grind while looking stylish as heck.

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I'm quite satisfied with the result, it's not quite what I expected but I think I can handle it. I expected more diverse effects, the rework looks more like an on/off button and it had much more potential than just that, my problem isn't even with the books being the focus, it's just that the books could be much more interesting than turning on the rain and turning on the light at night.
I still hope they change End Is Nigh, but now it seems pretty unlikely that it has any chance of happening. Horticulture expanded should be changed to 18 crops and On Tentacles should spawn the tentacles a little further away giving a safe area in the middle, period.

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23 minutes ago, Sapientis said:

If so what is the highlight of this refresh for you?

I'm obsessed with the Angler's guide. Especially paired with the recent addition of the Ocean Trawler. I just like how Wicker finally has synergy with her favorite food! Wish the same could be said with all the survivors.... but I digress.

27 minutes ago, Sapientis said:

what one thing would you change about it, given such power?

I'd either melt the Lux Aeterna books together, buff the latter one significantly, or expand their field of effect. rn the first one is so underwhelming and the upgrade feels not worth it for the cost.

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I am happy with the Refresh. I don't play Wicker but over all I like the new books. I feel like they are powerful and unique enough that im actually interested in playing her.
The thing that keeps me away is the lack of impact of her downsides. Though I'd have to actually test to see how the forced Shadow Creature spawn is because that alone might be reason enough for me to play her (Wormwood main so Sanity Control is one of my many loves).
7/10 on the Refresh imo. Would have liked to see them lean harder into one of her downsides (which they did by making her have complete sleep immunity).

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To me it succeeded to finally give interest into playing Wickerbottom to who had none or little before, such as me.
Most of her previous books were too situational and dried of potent quick so I wanted to play characters that remain useful for lategame sessions more than just grow plant fasts, which I anyway consider grow reasonably fast enough by themselves.

There are new books that are seriously nice now for plenty occasions, not all of them, or they are tuned wrong to me and that is a unfortunate part because the ones that lack of stuff have been pointed out, a lot, so I'm at least looking forward some last hotfixes that attempt more for them.

So for the book part that's checked out mostly, and since that's 90% of the character I'll say it's a good refresh regardless but there is to me one fragment of the gameplay I'll find lacking of style and that's the bookcase and crafting of books being solely behind the stocking and waiting to have uses of them until you spammed enough. Of course I'm adapting to it and have got 5 bookcases stuffed but I solely still consider this process boring.

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It made me a lot more interested in playing her at first... and then people had to complain, I'm sorry but I'm genuinely tired of stuff being balanced around complaints like "THIS OP! THAT OP! THIS SHOULD BE KNEECAPPED!" Practical Rain Rituals is now completely impossible to get in the early game on default settings removing some possibility for unique strategies really early on. (~~Lunar Grimoire should cost 2 moonglass instead of an iridescent gem if I have to be honest but I don't mind as killing shadowpieces 20 days earlier would be "OP"~~) still somewhat interested in playing her but there's a lot less possibilities due to just those two changes.

Other than that I love the new items that they added, the books and stuff, only thing I'm hoping to get changed is a buff to TEiN, the best one that wouldn't be too hard to implement I saw was from @Rita  and a buff to Holticulture Expanded by making it have 5 uses instead of 3, I can't wait for Wicker's short as she's has had a backstory I've always wanted to get to know more in-depth.

Plus this update will leave only 2 characters left without a rework, meaning Klei will be able to finally focus more on game content.

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I feel the need to update on this topic with some fresh thoughts.

Obviously her Bookcase has been nerfed (from 4 Boards and some Gold to 4 Living Logs) - this will require Wickerbottom to skip Shadow Manipulator early game if she wants to get access to her new Books, but with the Everything Encyclopedia she can prototype Magic Tab items for some Sanity. The main problem of this changed recipe is the fact that, albeit balanced well (considering she can craft basically everything for just 4 Living Logs, 6 Papyrus, a Feather Pencil and an Electrical Doodad), it is balanced around singleplayer mostly. In multiplayer scenarios, and much worse in public server scenarios, competing for Living Logs makes crafting the Bookcase much harder for others (this has been pointed out by @Ohan and @HowlVoid to some extend in their topics) they would much rather have a Shadow Manipulator at hand than having to ask Wickerbottom to use her Everything Encyclopedia each time someone wants to craft some Magic Tab items.
My idea to solve this problem is this: lower the cost of the Bookcase to 3 Living Logs (the same as Shadow Manipulator) and allow every character to read The Everything Encyclopedia, this way Bookcase will work like a Shadow Manipulator (even when Wickerbottom leaves the server) with this little drawback of limited Magic Tab prototypes in certain period of time as well as lowering one's Sanity instead of increasing it by prototyping. It won't affect Wickerbottom's single player gameplay in any way.

Practical Rain Rituals's recipe has been changed from 1 Umbrella and 1 Watering Can to 2 Down Feathers. I myself consider this change a good thing, because 2 Down Feathers is a drop from a single Mosling, pluck it and leave it, no questions asked. With the ease Wicker can make Mother Moose/Goose's nest a Hell On Tentacles in one night this Book just requires you to make it to Spring for a free ON/OFF switch to Rain (which for usual gameplay is the time you'll probably need this Book anyway). I get it makes this book lose some niche uses of easier CC rushing and servers staring in Summer, but those people choose the hard way, so it should be the hard way for everyone, even Wickerbottom!

Overcoming Arachnophobia change is minute, but it is a nerf. I think having living Spiders as an inventory item it would be fun if this Book was made out of one (you know - Overcoming Arachnophobia as in smash the spider with the book?).

Tempering Temperatures buff is a nice thing, but still doesn't increase this Book's usefulness too much (sadly). I posted this idea somewhere: this Book could be an ingredient of a better version, setting temperature to 35° for 4-8 minutes as well as player's Wetness to 0, and granting Wetness immunity for a couple minutes, similarly to Fish Cordon Bleu, to truly temper those temperatures.

And a thought I just recently came up with.
You know how certain character mechanics are better/cheaper versions of mechanics accessible to everyone? Rift Watch and Telelocation, Wortox Souls and Lazy Explorer, Battle Spear and Spear, Sleepytime Stories and Pan Flute, Practical Rain Rituals and Dripple Pipes to name a few?
So Lunar Grimoire seems like a character item being able to do the same thing as a certain late game, expensive item to summon Full Moon that would be made out of an Iridescent Gem. This is the right analogy in my opinion.

On 7/27/2022 at 6:58 AM, Ohan said:

Except for the horticulture point (im fine with the hort books) i think this thread by Noaa encapsulates perfectly the last finishing touches that this refresh needs. 

Yes, I also agree with most of @Noaa's ideas in their topic.
Sadly I feel like developers' solicitude over Wickerbottom's own refresh is very disappointing. They seem to put much more work in other characters' changes, new Weapons to spin Fences and patching previous updates than polishing the main figure of this whole update.

 

On 7/27/2022 at 7:06 AM, Arcwell said:

Wickerbottom was my first main in DST, but I swapped off after the RWYS nerf to Applied Horticulture.

[...]

 

Biggest highlight for me was the bookcase. Needing to craft a bajillion books for a farm setup was always pretty annoying, this gets around that grind while looking stylish as heck.

She was my first love as well, still probably my favourite character in Don't Starve singleplayer, especially Hamlet DLC. In DST she got a little outclassed by other Survivors in my opinion, food just isn't the problem and her books weren't that powerful. This refresh has a good chance to relit that my old love for Wickerbottom.
How do you feel about her Bookcase now? Do you think the change is good? Was it needed in your opinion?

 

On 7/27/2022 at 7:12 AM, dzzydzzy said:

I'm obsessed with the Angler's guide. Especially paired with the recent addition of the Ocean Trawler. I just like how Wicker finally has synergy with her favorite food! Wish the same could be said with all the survivors.... but I digress.

I'd either melt the Lux Aeterna books together, buff the latter one significantly, or expand their field of effect. rn the first one is so underwhelming and the upgrade feels not worth it for the cost.

Yes! Angler's Guide is very underappreciated, great Book overall!

Lux Aethernas suggestions seem reasonable as well. Cheaper is a little too expensive for it's power, Redux is really good, but the upgrade cost seems inadequate.

 

On 7/27/2022 at 7:45 AM, Evelo said:

I am happy with the Refresh. I don't play Wicker but over all I like the new books. I feel like they are powerful and unique enough that im actually interested in playing her.
The thing that keeps me away is the lack of impact of her downsides. Though I'd have to actually test to see how the forced Shadow Creature spawn is because that alone might be reason enough for me to play her (Wormwood main so Sanity Control is one of my many loves).
7/10 on the Refresh imo. Would have liked to see them lean harder into one of her downsides (which they did by making her have complete sleep immunity).

It's a good thing. After all this is what refreshes should do - interest players to try an old character in a new light.

 

On 7/27/2022 at 12:11 PM, ADM said:

To me it succeeded to finally give interest into playing Wickerbottom to who had none or little before, such as me.
Most of her previous books were too situational and dried of potent quick so I wanted to play characters that remain useful for lategame sessions more than just grow plant fasts, which I anyway consider grow reasonably fast enough by themselves.

There are new books that are seriously nice now for plenty occasions, not all of them, or they are tuned wrong to me and that is a unfortunate part because the ones that lack of stuff have been pointed out, a lot, so I'm at least looking forward some last hotfixes that attempt more for them.

So for the book part that's checked out mostly, and since that's 90% of the character I'll say it's a good refresh regardless but there is to me one fragment of the gameplay I'll find lacking of style and that's the bookcase and crafting of books being solely behind the stocking and waiting to have uses of them until you spammed enough. Of course I'm adapting to it and have got 5 bookcases stuffed but I solely still consider this process boring.

Well, even completing the whole collection of Books is sort of a game in the game itself. Some of the books will lay there unused for the most part, but some will be everyday's bread and butter. The worst part are books with literally no practical uses whatsoever (looking at you, The End is Nigh!). Why are they still there? Just to suffer.

Also all of those books come with a cost in opposite to Wigfrid's songs for example. It means that using them will still require you to somehow deal with lowered sanity and that just isn't so fun when you play her a lot. How many Terrorbeaks can you possibly kill before you get bored of it?

For me the best book actually changing her playstyle is Apicultural Notes, it's a little more selfish book with a lot of potential.

I still wait for some better book changes than the ones we just got. Maybe there is hope for that?

 

2 hours ago, yourAnty said:

It made me a lot more interested in playing her at first... and then people had to complain, I'm sorry but I'm genuinely tired of stuff being balanced around complaints like "THIS OP! THAT OP! THIS SHOULD BE KNEECAPPED!" Practical Rain Rituals is now completely impossible to get in the early game on default settings removing some possibility for unique strategies really early on. (~~Lunar Grimoire should cost 2 moonglass instead of an iridescent gem if I have to be honest but I don't mind as killing shadowpieces 20 days earlier would be "OP"~~) still somewhat interested in playing her but there's a lot less possibilities due to just those two changes.

Other than that I love the new items that they added, the books and stuff, only thing I'm hoping to get changed is a buff to TEiN, the best one that wouldn't be too hard to implement I saw was from @Rita  and a buff to Holticulture Expanded by making it have 5 uses instead of 3, I can't wait for Wicker's short as she's has had a backstory I've always wanted to get to know more in-depth.

Plus this update will leave only 2 characters left without a rework, meaning Klei will be able to finally focus more on game content.

And the worst part about those complaints is they are being made regarding public servers mostly, which this game is simply not suited for in the simplest words. 2 Moon Rocks was really cheap, but Lunar Grimoire isn't THAT powerful to require trips to Lunar Islands and Ancient Archives. It has some good practical uses and the recipe could be slightly adjusted, but the amount of complaining about it was just out of this world.
I said what I think about PRR, but I also didn't mind its previous recipe.

I also liked @Rita's take on TEiN, mostly the 1st suggestion (but Joy of Volcanology Meteor Book would also be a great book to have at hand). It's deals a good amount of damage, drains a lot of sanity, requires you to somehow immobilize the Giant to have the time to finish reading animation and it still holds the risk of a massive destruction via burning loot or accidently spreading fire.

 

Oh and the short, the short is what I wait for the most! Judging from the menu animation we are about to actually get some of her story and not a hot mess like Woodie's short was... Fingers crossed!

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1 hour ago, Sapientis said:

Sadly I feel like developers' solicitude over Wickerbottom's own refresh is very disappointing. They seem to put much more work in other characters' changes, new Weapons to spin Fences and patching previous updates than polishing the main figure of this whole update.

Fully agreed. I find it almost shocking to be honest.

I could stomach the wortox stuff cuz thats what happened with wurt during WX patch and im glad it did but adding brand new generic items and mechanics to the game during a survivor’s refresh feels so rude. 

ESPECIALLY because tEiN is still what it is. ——

WRT to the bookcase recipe, i personally find letting everyone read the Encyc to be too weird. Reducing it to 2-3 living logs and/or giving it Shadow Manipulator tech on top of Alchemy is the way to go imo. 

Even if these changes were to be made im probably still never going to play her on pubs ever again lol. Nobody else is forced to leave their most precious stuff in an even more precious container for anyone who passes by to rummage through or burn.

1 hour ago, Sapientis said:

but the amount of complaining about it was just out of this world.

Ive said it before this is imo the second most annoying beta after wolfgang :lol: 99 threads calling for nerfs for frequently uninformed reasons and nobody except the wicker mains that care about the blatantly lacklustre stuff. 

1 hour ago, Sapientis said:

I still wait for some better book changes than the ones we just got. Maybe there is hope for that?

Lets see if they care at all :roll:

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On 7/29/2022 at 12:19 PM, Sapientis said:

How do you feel about her Bookcase now? Do you think the change is good? Was it needed in your opinion?

Very late response, oops.

I think it was overtuned.
Living logs actually make a lot of sense for the bookcase and I don't mind some of Wickerbottom's books being locked behind this (like Wanda's alarming clock being locked behind shadow manipulator), but 4 living logs is just excessive. 4 living logs means a single totally normal tree can't make a single bookcase, which is a HUGE deal when many worlds only have 1 or even 0 of them. This means you're basically relying on treeguards or mush gnomes, which are both extremely random. Treeguards hardly even spawn in earlygame, which for me at least is the time where I want a bookcase so I can make Apicultural Notes for a Season 1 Dragonfly fight. Mush Gnomes are pretty random in terms of how many spawn per visit and how many living logs they drop, meaning you could be stuck there for days farming for your most important character craft. I would say farming mush gnomes in this fashion is a lot like farming cookie cutters, and I haven't met a single person who enjoys that. I think a much better solution would be to make the bookcase cost 3 or even 2 living logs. That way you'd still be able to use totally normal trees as a means of making a bookcase, and if it were 2 living logs, you'd be able to craft applied silviculture on top of it.

TL;DR: 4 living logs bad. 2-3 living logs good.

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7 minutes ago, Arcwell said:

how many living logs they drop

Slightly off-topic but I've always wished Mush Gnomes had a guaranteed two living logs loot drop. The 50% chance for a 2nd one always felt bad in gameplay to me.

Yes to making Book Cases at the least 2-3 living logs!

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I was actually excited when the beta initially came out, but all the nerfs just left a bad taste in my mouth. I was really looking forward to using the bee book when it spawned 3 grumbles per use. With only 2 bees per use it's just gonna feel eh. I'm glad the rain book was only changed to down feathers and not something absurd like an eyebrella + waterfowl can. Though I still wouldn't mind another rain item accessible by any character.

I strongly appreciate the light book not needing a firefly though. Probably my favorite change about her rework.

Did the rework make me interested in playing her? Yes, it still did.

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54 minutes ago, ArubaroBeefalo said:

people arguing about the moon book when the bee book nerf was the worst nerf :_

Seriously there hasnt been enough time to give an appropriate response to every absurd nerf shes gotten so far because there have been so freaking many lol 

to go from infinite bees to NINE and then to 16 with 2 each cast is bonkers. 

Klei has always been pretty wonky with balance but this refresh really takes the cake. 

How did the beta even release with infinite bees and 2 moon rocks for the grimoire in place? Forumite outrage at balance like this was the only possible outcome lol.

And they just immediately swung from one extreme to the other. 

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7 minutes ago, Ohan said:

Seriously there hasnt been enough time to give an appropriate response to every absurd nerf shes gotten so far because there have been so freaking many lol 

to go from infinite bees to NINE and then to 16 with 2 each cast is bonkers. 

Klei has always been pretty wonky with balance but this refresh really takes the cake. 

How did the beta even release with infinite bees and 2 moon rocks for the grimoire in place? Forumite outrage at balance like this was the only possible outcome lol.

And they just immediately swung from one extreme to the other. 

now the book sucks because who would waste sanity and waste an inventory slot to summon 2 bees? atleast increase the uses or revert it to summon 3 per cast

2 moon rock for the moon book was something i couldnt understand and not only for being cheap but also because we have 3 renewable sources of moon glass but only 2 recipes which only 1 is actually really useful (lets be honest, glass cutters are only crafted just to waste resources) so the book could be 2-5 moon rook and 10-20 glass and maybe moths if they want to create an obstacle to craft the book early. The opal looks pretty in the crafting tab but brings a problem nobody mentioned, will ever klei add a poweful recipe that requires the opal or they wont over use such interesting item because is kinda limited? i would love a late game moon craft using opals but now i feel that it might not happend since wicker is already using them

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If they made sleeping more viable for restoring health and sanity, that could have been the focus of the downside instead of stale food as now the characters that you would rely to sleep and restore stats with is not an option at all for Wickerbottom.

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