Maxwell Rework Speculation

[Pruinae]

I think he should get improved AI in his current minions (if they there are more than X lumberjacks going for the same tree, one of them splits from the group and goes for a different tree to make sure they don't body block each other, etc), no sanity loss from using magic gear (possibly even double damage with the dark sword? maybe only when insane? maybe damage with it increases based on the amount of sanity locked?), and new spells.

Spitballing (Duration, amount of sanity locked, and ingredient cost could be balancing factors for these): 
- Buffs such as increased strength (like in the Wolfgang trailer) or movespeed.
- A buff that makes so shadow creatures don't target affected players, unless provoked.
- A shadow blast that causes trees to be uproot (cuts it down and removes the stump all in one), mines rocks, and deals (gunpowder?) damage in an AoE.
- A way to "exorcise" shadow creatures, instakilling them. This gives the sanity to the closest player to the creature.

[maradyne]

20 hours ago, Pruinae said:

maybe damage with it increases based on the amount of sanity locked?

Oooh... hadn't thought about it, but mechanics around max sanity changes would be n e a t.

[ShadowDuelist]

I think they should buff ShadowDuelists.

The reasoning behind it: 

Spoiler

Based

 

[Another Vena]

Based on the previous refreshes, it's going to add new shadow workers and maybe buff Maxwell's combat ability, but that's just a guess.

[ArubaroBeefalo]

1 hour ago, Another Vena said:

Based on the previous refreshes, it's going to add new shadow workers and maybe buff Maxwell's combat ability, but that's just a guess.

I will be disappointed if he doesnt get a shadow farmer

[EdaTheFrog]

a small thing, but maybe they should decrease shadow creature aggression range. with the new ruins biome, i would argue this should be general change, not just for maxwell. but i doubt that is gonna happen. maxwell deserves it at least. i hope the rework is good~

[GelatinousCube]

He was on the nightmare throne for a long time and has the codex umbra in his possession and currently all he can do and his only perks (outside of sanity regen) is summoning shadow workers which honestly in my opinion suck. 

There are plenty of ways to get a ton of wood quickly including bearger, honey crystals, hiring pigs, Woodie, sinkholes, planting trees in meteor fields etc. Even ignoring all this mid to late game wood becomes a lot less important so his efficient gathering of wood becomes far less useful.

Same goes for mining. There are various ways to mine quickly and amass stone, moon rocks, nitre etc. 

You also can't target or restrict what the shadow workers will chop/mine so stuff you may want to leave for decorative purposes can be destroyed if not careful. If you only want to chop level 3 trees to actually create more trees/expand a forest area that's a problem too.

Then there's the shadow fighters who are just absolute garbage and are useful for close to nothing. 

Insert obligatory we already have enough minion based characters comment here.

Basically I can't stand his shadow minions, their AI is garbage, the fighters are utterly useless and there are plenty of other ways to gather wood or mine resources efficiently that aren't character specific. He brings very little to the table and has extremely low max health allowing him to get one shot by many attacks if not careful most notably depth worms who just destroy him in one attack if he isn't wearing armor. 

I'd absolutely love for his rework to be a big overhaul that changes his play style completely and gives him new abilities and perks that actually reflect who he is and his background. If they literally just buff shadow minions and add a few new types I'll continue to more or less never play as him.

I only ever swap to him to destroy sea stacks because that is something he excels at. I literally do not use him or play as him for any other reason. Sanity is easy to manage and often not even necessary or desired if you want to farm nightmare fuel from nightmare creatures. 

He really needs a killer rework considering how important and central he is to the lore of the game.

[slendyproject]

I think he should be able to trade both sanity and health (along with plenty of nightmare fuel) for powerful effects. Like generate any kind of material out of nightmare fuel, make any creature fight for you, revive other players with nightmare fuel. He is supposed to be a sorcerer, let him actually influence the world around him with spells. Turn trees into treeguards, change where wormholes lead, make nightmare creatures fight for you, he should literally be able to influence anything and everything to his benefit at a large cost.

Using magic to mine faster is such an uninspired use of the whole sorcerer theming.

[maxwell_winters]

20 minutes ago, slendyproject said:

Turn trees into treeguards

Maxwell's rework turns into Wormwood's funeral.

[Skelewar]

I've seen an idea where Max could upgrade his codex with Thulecite for more powerful minions. Personally, I want the minions connected to the book like Chester to Eyebone, so you could give them to a friend or leave them at home. Also, toggleable like Abigail so the miners dont destroy decorative marble bushes. Also, impervious to outside damage! Is my digger really too OP that a Bearger slam kills it? And finally, just remove the damn duelists they are basically useless. Maybe instead a shadow jester to taunt mobs and convert the damage into negative sanity until it dies at 0, so Max can attack freely with the right sanity management. 

[Pruinae]

9 minutes ago, Skelewar said:

 Maybe a shadow jester to taunt mobs and convert the damage into negative sanity until it dies at 0, so Max can attack freely with the right sanity management. 

OMG make the jester look like Wilson for a little bit of friendly banter between them

[Cheggf]

17 minutes ago, Skelewar said:

Also, toggleable like Abigail so the miners dont destroy decorative marble bushes.

If you punch them they stop working. 

[Skelewar]

37 minutes ago, Cheggf said:

If you punch them they stop working. 

Ack of course! Now all that's left is the small side effect of their death to work through...

 

For real though, Max just being a resource collector is a bit lame and out of character imo. At least Woodie is literally a lumberjack, and of course post-rework has more functionality than just resources.

[Cheggf]

1 hour ago, Skelewar said:

Ack of course! Now all that's left is the small side effect of their death to work through...

If the cause of their death is Maxwell they drop half the fuel used to make them. Maxwell is already several times faster than Woodie and able to start and stop the harvesting at will instead of consume an idol and harvest for a specific period of time so I see no reason he needs to be able to command them to stop. 

1 hour ago, Skelewar said:

For real though, Max just being a resource collector is a bit lame and out of character imo

I agree, which is why I don't like that whenever his rework is brought up most people don't say anything other than "I don't like punching shadows, give me infinite free mindless harvesting please".

Honestly I wouldn't be opposed to them making the shadows automatically die after 2 days. I think you guys are just too strung up on hypothetically saving an inconsequential amount of fuel because you can technically have them out forever. If they just died maybe you'd see them as the ephemeral thing they are, like Woodie's idols. 

[Spep]

Personally, just throw his mediocre gatherers in the bin entirely and triple down on shadow magic, like using shadow hands to move allies and structures, or repairing magic items at the cost of temporarily losing max sanity, anything to make him more of a former shadow king than a resource gatherer that is BARELY better than woodie.

[Cheggf]

1 hour ago, Spep said:

Personally, just throw his mediocre gatherers in the bin entirely and triple down on shadow magic, like using shadow hands to move allies and structures, or repairing magic items at the cost of temporarily losing max sanity, anything to make him more of a former shadow king than a resource gatherer that is BARELY better than woodie.

He is like 2x better than Woodie. His gathering perks are infinitely more useful than "repairing magic items" and "moving structures" would be. 

[WebberMain]

7 hours ago, Cheggf said:

He is like 2x better than Woodie. His gathering perks are infinitely more useful than "repairing magic items" and "moving structures" would be. 

Thats the problem. He is an egomaniacal dark sorcerer with unfathomable knowledge. And he uses that for collecting wood and stone. Thats some peasants work isn´t it? He, as an ex-ruler of the world uses his shadow powers for menial tasks? That is a waste of potential and talent

[Dextops]

4 hours ago, WebberMain said:

Thats some peasants work isn´t it?

It is, which is exactly why he makes shadows do it. He is a king, and his shadows are his subordinates.

[Cheggf]

4 hours ago, WebberMain said:

Thats the problem. He is an egomaniacal dark sorcerer with unfathomable knowledge. And he uses that for collecting wood and stone. Thats some peasants work isn´t it? He, as an ex-ruler of the world uses his shadow powers for menial tasks? That is a waste of potential and talent

And moving a structure isn't? 

[Another Vena]

6 hours ago, WebberMain said:

Thats the problem. He is an egomaniacal dark sorcerer with unfathomable knowledge.

Why do people think Maxwell is cool? He was penniless while his brother was raising the twins. And he's self-centered, too. All he did in life was due to randomly finding the book, which brought him eternal torture.

[FourthLess]

41 minutes ago, Another Vena said:

Why do people think Maxwell is cool? He was penniless while his brother was raising the twins. And he's self-centered, too. All he did in life was due to randomly finding the book, which brought him eternal torture.

Idk, sounds cool to me

[maxwell_winters]

27 minutes ago, Another Vena said:

Why do people think Maxwell is cool? He was penniless while his brother was raising the twins. And he's self-centered, too. All he did in life was due to randomly finding the book, which brought him eternal torture.

Maxwell was smart enough to use the powers of Codex Umbra to his advantage. He also experimented with magic and the knowledge of the Ancients creating ice and fire hounds, tallbirds and clockworks. He literally shaped the world around his persona. 

[Bumber64]

23 hours ago, Cheggf said:

If the cause of their death is Maxwell they drop half the fuel used to make them. Maxwell is already several times faster than Woodie and able to start and stop the harvesting at will instead of consume an idol and harvest for a specific period of time so I see no reason he needs to be able to command them to stop.

Meanwhile in Wurt's swamp...

[Cheggf]

1 hour ago, Bumber64 said:

Meanwhile in Wurt's swamp...

Even ignoring the large initial cost and that they're much slower than Maxwell, she doesn't get them for free infinitely since she has to feed them to temporarily recruit them. 

[Bumber64]

20 minutes ago, Cheggf said:

Even ignoring the large initial cost and that they're much slower than Maxwell, she doesn't get them for free infinitely since she has to feed them to temporarily recruit them. 

I'm pretty sure she can recruit many with a single food item (such as stone fruit that they can crack open easily.) She gets way more of them to offset their speed and they don't cost her max sanity.