Small Wickerbottom tweaks I'd like to see before launch

[Arcwell]

Guessing we're not getting any more major changes to the beta since the update hits this Thursday. With that in mind I'd like to suggest a few minor tweaks to Wickerbottom before that time comes. Hopefully these aren't too polarizing.

Bookcase: Change recipe from 4 living logs to 3. This makes totally normal trees a viable option for making bookcases, potentially saving the player from needing to grind treeguard/mushgnome spawns. 

Pyrokinetics Explained: Change range from ~3 tiles to ~4 tiles. Would make the effect closer to a screen-wide, mitigating the need to cast multiple times to stop larger fires. Currently the area of effect is rather underwhelming compared to Luxury Fan.

The End is Nigh!: Make lightning bolts that strike trees have a chance to spawn treeguards. Suggested by @HowlVoid but it's worth repeating. Currently the book is useless aside from making an extremely miniscule light aura and getting an entire herd of goats to aggro you. Giving it the ability to spawn treeguards would give this book a valuable niche (living logs) while still being tricky to use. Remember you'd still need rain protection from your own lightning, plus you need to kill the treeguards you summon (which takes a while), there would likely be multiple aggro'd on you at once, plus you have to deal with the wildfire you just created. I think this change is especially fitting because it synergizes with Bookcase (requires living logs) and Pyrokinetics Explained (puts out fires that TEiN causes).

So, what are your thoughts? Are these tweaks good or bad ideas? Should Wickerbottom be buffed, nerfed, or remain in her current state? Do you plan to play or not play Wickerbottom because of these changes or other changes?

[Hornete]

I would also still like to see the Lunar Grimore not affect the entire lunar cycle, only causing a full moon for the current day and then returning on track to the current cycle.

This one's mostly just for thematic purposes for me. I always liked the lunar quest line building up to this ability to alter(haha) the entire lunar cycle, and while it doesn't have much actual gameplay usage, it's just very neat to me story wise! Wickerbottom of course has always been a character of being able to play around with the constant like a chew toy and I love her for that, but I feel her being able to change the cycle so willingly crosses the line for me just a tiny bit and takes away from the original way of changing the cycle. Most likely just me, and I can live with it if it doesn't get changed.

Overcoming Arachnophobia needs to be able to slowdown the spin attack in the Celestial Champion's phase 2 and it'll be fine for me, this is like one of the few places in the game where slowdown would be amazing but it seems all slow down mechanics don't work that well haha(slowdown rounds + the overcoming arachnophobia book)

[xhyom]

8 minutes ago, Hornete said:

I would also still like to see the Lunar Grimore not affect the entire lunar cycle, only causing a full moon for the current day and then returning on track to the current cycle.

This was one of the problems that I wasn't even worrying about, in my head of course they were going to fix it soon, right? RIGHT?...

[maxwell_winters]

I think she's in a more or less good spot right now, she just needs tweaks. I agree that the PE and TEiN need more functionality. As for bookcase, since it now requires living logs, it should function as Magic 1 station instead of Alchemy Engine. 

I kiiiiinda hope for the weapon book she can slap enemies with, since a lot of people suggested it. Klei even updated the sprite of the book from The Gorge. Besides, the animation of slapping is already there, they only need the animation of holding the book. But realistically, I understand it's unlikely to happen. 

[Arcwell]

1 hour ago, maxwell_winters said:

As for bookcase, since it now requires living logs, it should function as Magic 1 station instead of Alchemy Engine. 

Curious, what do you think of it functioning as a tier 2 magic station (shadow manipulator) instead? That could potentially alleviate some of the competition for living logs in multiplayer games. 

[Gashzer]

Bookcase cost is fine as is, mush gnomes respawn everyday in lunar grotto or a friendly wormwood can sort all your living log needs on a pub. Hallowed trees are the least reliable source of living logs tbh, just go explore the cave. (Honestly for how powerful the bookcase is with regenerating books, the cost should be higher)

Pyrokinetics range buff would be nice.

The End of nigh spawning treeguards makes no sense whatsoever. Woodie already has an increased chance of spawning treeguards with his 50% spawn boost and faster chop speed. Wormwood can produce living logs himself, we do not need a third living log producing character on top of everything else wicker can do.

[Mysterious box]

I feel like the pyro book should just cover the whole screen with it's range.

[Cheggf]

23 hours ago, Gashzer said:

Woodie already has an increased chance of spawning treeguards with his 50% spawn boost and faster chop speed. Wormwood can produce living logs himself, we do not need a third living log producing character

Woodie, Maxwell, Wurt, Wolfgang, and Warly all chop trees faster. Wolfgang, Wendy, Woodie, Wanda, Wigfrid, Wurt, Webber, Willow, Winona, Maxwell, and WX all have perks directly related to combat and you can add some more to that list with indirect perks like Wormwood and Wes. 3 characters doing something similar in a different way is not unheard of. 

[Gashzer]

4 hours ago, Cheggf said:

Woodie, Maxwell, Wurt, Wolfgang, and Warly all chop trees faster. Wolfgang, Wendy, Woodie, Wanda, Wigfrid, Wurt, Webber, Willow, Winona, Maxwell, and WX all have perks directly related to combat and you can add some more to that list with indirect perks like Wormwood and Wes. 3 characters doing something similar in a different way is not unheard of. 

Tbh its how people try to justify lightning strikes making treeguards that bothers me.

Ah yes when i think of the end of the world, what comes to mind is instead of lightning burning an destroying trees, it creates treeguards........

Maybe if it created a hostile "apocalypse" effect for a day (like hamlet) in were treeguards had a 100% increase chance to spawn, that makes sense.

However spawning treeguards should not be the end is nigh's primary or most notable effect. 

Edit: was just thinking Applied Silviculture should be the book to spawn treeguards as its actually linked to tree growth. Everytime you use it on a group of stage 3 trees it has like a 10-20% chance to cause 1-3 treeguards to spawn.

Atleast that book has an arguable lore reason to create treeguards.

[Mike23Ua]

Pyro Kinetics book should turn larvae into hardened larvae, and soothe enraged DFly.

[HowlVoid]

On 8/2/2022 at 12:37 AM, Gashzer said:

The End of nigh spawning treeguards makes no sense whatsoever.

Actually lightning in dst has been know to bring things to life. In touch stones or when placing Webber's skull in a grave. Red gems resurrect players too.

Quote

Woodie already has an increased chance of spawning treeguards with his 50% spawn boost and faster chop speed. Wormwood can produce living logs himself, we do not need a third living log producing character on top of everything else wicker can do.

A guy with a magic curse, a magic sentient plant, so why not the magic grandma? Not to mention she has two crafts now that require the magical logs.

Balance wise this is actually supposed to be comparable to chopping down trees but since it more expensive it has an advantage. At 1% per lightning (cost of a red gem) is lower than the 1.33% it takes for a flint and a stick to cut down a tree. Plus a that percent goes up as the world gets older. So late game and in comparison to other characters its not superior by any means. Just a way for wicker to get a leg up early on. 

So I'd say it makes perfect sense thematic and balance wise imo.

[ShadowDuelist]

On 8/1/2022 at 11:31 PM, Arcwell said:

The End is Nigh!: Make lightning bolts that strike trees have a chance to spawn treeguards.

I think this is sort of an overkill. Wicker currently can spawn more treeguards faster than most characters (except Woodie, but this synergizes with him)
You can plant a one screen-sized forest, wait until they change from a recently planted sapling to a stage 1 tree, then read applied silviculture, until they reach the final stage (dead tree).
Dead pines can be chopped down in one hit, they give you back one cone, and you will go through them so fast that you will get a lot of treeguards from it almost for certain. (unless you do this before day 5). If you have a Woodie friend with Lucy, you can probably get more treeguards from doing the same thing.

I think TEIN needs to stop dealing friendly damage/team killing (in non PVP, maybe only WX could still get a few hits from it since it doesn't get damaged from them) and deal about 80 damage per lightning strike, and maybe add a stunlock effect of 2 seconds to enemies hit. 
This would enable the book to be useful to at least reduce the numbers, or weaken, overwhelming enemies. It wouldn't be the most useful book around, but it could maybe play its part.

[Mike23Ua]

2 minutes ago, ShadowDuelist said:

I think this is sort of an overkill. Wicker currently can spawn more treeguards faster than most characters (except Woodie, but this synergizes with him)
You can plant a one screen-sized forest, wait until they change from a recently planted sapling to a stage 1 tree, then read applied silviculture, until they reach the final stage (dead tree).
Dead pines can be chopped down in one hit, they give you back one cone, and you will go through them so fast that you will get a lot of treeguards from it almost for certain. (unless you do this before day 5). If you have a Woodie friend with Lucy, you can probably get more treeguards from doing the same thing.

I think TEIN needs to stop dealing friendly damage/team killing (in non PVP, maybe only WX could still get a few hits from it since it doesn't get damaged from them) and deal about 80 damage per lightning strike, and maybe add a stunlock effect of 2 seconds to enemies hit. 
This would enable the book to be useful to at least reduce the numbers, or weaken, overwhelming enemies. It wouldn't be the most useful book around, but it could maybe play its part.

no.. I want a book that summons Lightning to summon lightning properly.

[ShadowDuelist]

3 minutes ago, Mike23Ua said:

no.. I want a book that summons Lightning to summon lightning properly.

Lightning currently deals almost no damage, it's useless as a "weapon" which is the book's theme. I'm actually reinforcing that idea of damage dealing lightning.

[Ohan]

7 minutes ago, ShadowDuelist said:

I think this is sort of an overkill. Wicker currently can spawn more treeguards faster than most characters (except Woodie, but this synergizes with him)
You can plant a one screen-sized forest, wait until they change from a recently planted sapling to a stage 1 tree, then read applied silviculture, until they reach the final stage (dead tree).

This is no longer possible .. the refresh has made silviculture grow trees to max stage with the first read and reads after that have no effect on the trees.

U can no longer force dead trees with silvi 

[ShadowDuelist]

1 minute ago, Ohan said:

This is no longer possible .. the refresh has made silviculture grow trees to max stage with the first read and reads after that have no effect on the trees.

U can no longer force dead trees with silvi 

Oh manure I didn't know this. This is pretty bad! it was the only use I gave to that book.

[HowlVoid]

13 minutes ago, ShadowDuelist said:

I think this is sort of an overkill. Wicker currently can spawn more treeguards faster than most characters (except Woodie, but this synergizes with him)
You can plant a one screen-sized forest, wait until they change from a recently planted sapling to a stage 1 tree, then read applied silviculture, until they reach the final stage (dead tree).
Dead pines can be chopped down in one hit, they give you back one cone, and you will go through them so fast that you will get a lot of treeguards from it almost for certain. (unless you do this before day 5). If you have a Woodie friend with Lucy, you can probably get more treeguards from doing the same thing.

Yeah, it's not supposed to be better than other methods. 

Also... Not sure how I feel about using a method to gather living logs which require living logs. This is supposed to be more of some help early game where red gems can be acquired via graves. Maybe wicker won't have a Wormwood or Woodie on hand, I prefer when characters have methods to be self sufficient. I also don't think it's overkill as they don't stack, overkill implies adding something to something that already exists.

Quote

I think TEIN needs to stop dealing friendly damage/team killing (in non PVP, maybe only WX could still get a few hits from it since it doesn't get damaged from them) and deal about 80 damage per lightning strike, and maybe add a stunlock effect of 2 seconds to enemies hit. 
This would enable the book to be useful to at least reduce the numbers, or weaken, overwhelming enemies. It wouldn't be the most useful book around, but it could maybe play its part.

I could say the same that this is over kill when tentacle fields exist to deal damage to mobs. In this case you are adding damage on top of damage. Or how you have wormwood to make traps do deal AOE damage.

I don't think it's too problematic for wicker to have some independence.

Edit: nvm the book doesn't even grow dead trees so rip to that trick.

[Ohan]

Just now, ShadowDuelist said:

Oh manure I didn't know this. This is pretty bad! it was the only use I gave to that book.

Yup i dont even want to bring it up anymore in a dedicated post or bug report since they probably wouldnt care to change it 

the only feedback not listened to this refresh has been from dedicated wicker players 

[ShadowDuelist]

Just now, HowlVoid said:

I could say the same that this is over kill when tentacle fields exist to deal damage to mobs. In this case you are adding damage on top of damage. Or how you have wormwood to make traps do deal AOE damage.

I don't think it's too problematic for wicker to have some independence.

Oh yeah I don't mean for it to be thematically problematic, I mean that she already has (or HAD, as Ohan said) a way to summon more treeguards, and that TEIN was more of a "weapon" conceptually than a harvesting tool. I was just bringing that mechanic to light, but it is possible that it has been killed now sadly 

7 minutes ago, Ohan said:

Yup i dont even want to bring it up anymore in a dedicated post or bug report since they probably wouldnt care to change it 

I think we still should, TBH. It's far more useful to be able to get them to dead stage than just growing normal trees in one go. Maybe if they are fully grown and we read again, they should get dead or something...
I guess the only way now is to get them to stage 3 then wait for them to die naturally...

[HowlVoid]

17 minutes ago, ShadowDuelist said:

Oh yeah I don't mean for it to be thematically problematic, I mean that she already has (or HAD, as Ohan said) a way to summon more treeguards, and that TEIN was more of a "weapon" conceptually than a harvesting tool. I was just bringing that mechanic to light, but it is possible that it has been killed now sadly 

I still think it's weird that applied silviculture costs a living log at all, but maybe that's a discussion for another time. This isn't that important of a book to Wicker (I hope) so maybe it doesn't matter.

[Ohan]

33 minutes ago, ShadowDuelist said:

I think we still should, TBH. It's far more useful to be able to get them to dead stage than just growing normal trees in one go. Maybe if they are fully grown and we read again, they should get dead or something...
I guess the only way now is to get them to stage 3 then wait for them to die naturally...

Feel free to try. If they knew what they were doing they wouldnt have removed this feature in the first place. I cant be bothered anymore  

the entire beta forum has been asking for larger pyrokinetics range (the simplest, smallest buff imaginable for an incredibly niche book) and even that hasnt happened

 

[Catteflyterpill]

40 minutes ago, HowlVoid said:

Yeah, it's not supposed to be better than other methods. 

Also... Not sure how I feel about using a method to gather living logs which require living logs. This is supposed to be more of some help early game where red gems can be acquired via graves. Maybe wicker won't have a Wormwood or Woodie on hand, I prefer when characters have methods to be self sufficient. I also don't think it's overkill as they don't stack, overkill implies adding something to something that already exists.

I could say the same that this is over kill when tentacle fields exist to deal damage to mobs. In this case you are adding damage on top of damage. Or how you have wormwood to make traps do deal AOE damage.

I don't think it's too problematic for wicker to have some independence.

Edit: nvm the book doesn't even grow dead trees so rip to that trick.

I don't think it's too problematic to have more synergy with other characters like this. Woodie and Wormwood can help Wicker get living logs early; however, if they don't exist then there's plenty of other methods of gaining living logs. Maybe not as easily and quickly accessible, but synergy is supposed to open up new avenues through character interactions. 

[HowlVoid]

32 minutes ago, Catteflyterpill said:

I don't think it's too problematic to have more synergy with other characters like this. Woodie and Wormwood can help Wicker get living logs early; however, if they don't exist then there's plenty of other methods of gaining living logs. Maybe not as easily and quickly accessible, but synergy is supposed to open up new avenues through character interactions. 

The effects wouldn't invalidate any synergy with other characters or cheaper methods. You can give x amount of pig meant than spend time fire proofing a forest and paying the sanity for it.

[Catteflyterpill]

3 minutes ago, HowlVoid said:

The effects wouldn't invalidate any synergy with other characters or cheaper methods. You can give x amount of pig meant than spend time fire proofing a forest and paying the sanity for it.

I disagree, I think that in general giving several characters the same/similar enough abilities can lead to invalidating synergy. In this case, I don't think it's that big a deal if Wickerbottom was able to summon Treeguards in some way or form. Wormwood's free log isn't as taxing on resources as fighting Treeguards; however, I'm just saying that some resource scarcity does open up a little bit more synergy and cooperation. But even without a Wormwood or Woodie, Wicker can get living logs just fine with the mechanics available to all players. So I don't think she necessarily needs a method to summon Treeguards exclusively to her, since we have other chraracters that do it just fine. That being said, I wouldn't be really too upset if it was added. Just don't think its necessary is all. 

Not sure what you meant by that second sentence. Maybe I'm tired or maybe there's a typo, sorry. 

[HowlVoid]

6 minutes ago, Catteflyterpill said:

I disagree, I think that in general giving several characters the same/similar enough abilities can lead to invalidating synergy.

There are several characters with overlapping abilities. It is proven that this does not invalidate the existence of x character.  

6 minutes ago, Catteflyterpill said:

In this case, I don't think it's that big a deal if Wickerbottom was able to summon Treeguards in some way or form.

Wait, so are you agreeing with me? Im saying tree guarding spawning via TEIN is ok...

6 minutes ago, Catteflyterpill said:

Wormwood's free log isn't as taxing on resources as fighting Treeguards;

As a Wormwood main I assure you it is taxing on my health if there's no Wortox to babysit me chopping my arms off.

6 minutes ago, Catteflyterpill said:

however, I'm just saying that some resource scarcity does open up a little bit more synergy and cooperation. But even without a Wormwood or Woodie, Wicker can get living logs just fine with the mechanics available to all players.

That's fair, I just don't see why a character exclusive can't exist too...

6 minutes ago, Catteflyterpill said:

So I don't think she necessarily needs a method to summon Treeguards exclusively to her, since we have other chraracters that do it just fine. That being said, I wouldn't be really too upset if it was added. Just don't think its necessary is all. 

I wouldn't be too upset if they didn't add it. I still wish they brought the price down to 3... 

6 minutes ago, Catteflyterpill said:

Not sure what you meant by that second sentence. Maybe I'm tired or maybe there's a typo, sorry. 

Yeah, typo sorry. I meant to say it's probably cheaper feed some pigs and have them deforest a biome.