Maxwell Rework Speculation

[HeatAndRun]

Imo Maxwell definitely needs shadow Polly Roger

[Cheggf]

3 hours ago, Bumber64 said:

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.

So? 

[Zerro9]

Personally I think it would be cool if Maxwell can transform himself into something beyond human, due to him losing control over the shadow magic that he has been using. Maybe it can be similar to how Woodie turns into a beaver, for Maxwell it would be some sort of shadow version of himself.

So Maxwell can feed nightmare fuel to Codex Umbra which will raise Codex Umbra's hunger meter. Codex Umbra can then be spent to perform dark magic or be overfed and causes a unique transformation of Maxwell because now Codex Umbra dominates and controls Maxwell.

With the transformation, Maxwell turns himself into a Demonic Shadow and gains a few perks like hounds and shadow creatures being neutral towards Maxwell as well as gaining a night time vision, a movement speed boost, higher max HP, damage multiplier when using shadow weapon. When attacking, there will be a chance for Maxwell to split himself and summon shadow duelist (or maybe something cooler) that assist Maxwell in fighting for a few seconds. He will be in constant insanity during transformation but as said before, shadow creatures will be neutral to Maxwell, similar to using bone helm but maybe lower shadow creature spawn rate. His usual hunger and sanity meter will be replaced by dark meter which depletes overtime (lasting about a day). The dark meter will deplete each time Maxwell splits himself during a fight, so the more you fight, the faster Maxwell will become human again. Once the dark meter depletes to 0, Maxwell turns back to human again. Codex Umbra will refuse to be fed with nightmare fuel during the transformation as well as after the transformation for 3 days. 

For using Codex Umbra itself, we can keep the previous abilities like summoning minions, but instead of using specific crafting recipes, we spend Codex Umbra's power indicated by its hunger meter. Here are some abilities that I thought of:

Shadow Tagging: Using 10% of hunger, Maxwell can tag another player and allow him to teleport himself to that player (by channeling through the shadow) at any time he wants (only one player can be tagged at a time)

Shadow Summon: Using 20% of hunger and -40 of Max Sanity, Maxwell summon shadow minions of choosing up to three minions. The shadow minions can be commanded to start/stop doing their task

Shadow Tribute: Using 50% of hunger and 50% his Max Sanity, Maxwell halves the cooldown required for him to transform into Demonic Shadow. This will change Maxwell's play style from a being gatherer to a fighter (since lower max sanity will limit the number of minions). Maxwell can always cancel the effects of Shadow Tribute whenever he wants (so he can play a role of gatherer again)

Shadow Aura: Maxwell can now choose to become insane anytime he wants by toggling shadow aura on/off (Basically same as nightmare amulet but without causing his sanity to drop). While shadow aura is on, the hunger meter of Codex Umbra keeps depleting.

[Mr_Vol]

14 hours ago, Zerro9 said:

So Maxwell can feed nightmare fuel to Codex Umbra which will raise Codex Umbra's hunger meter. Codex Umbra can then be spent to perform dark magic or be overfed and causes a unique transformation of Maxwell because now Codex Umbra dominates and controls Maxwell.

Another mouth to feed.

I like the idea of changing forms to do different task but Woodie should be the man for that. I would like to see Maxwell as a good support character, normally people play Maxwell in group play so he doesn't need to be another fighter class.

[Cyber_Joueur]

What is surprising is that wanda, at the moment is much more related to nightmare fuel than Maxwell. If I were to rework him, they would be very similar in their functionings.
However I would like to make some suggestions that I think could make Maxwell more unique in its theme, I would have liked to make a mod but unfortunately I don't have enough time to do so :

- During boss fights it could automatically absorb with the Umbra codex 10% of the maximum life of a boss at the beginning of the fight (not cumulative with several Maxwell)

- It would have a special interaction with the stage hand (I imagined a kind of shadow procession, a bit like on the back of a beefalo but not able to carry anything and defended by terror beaks) a kind of last resort that maxwell would have hidden underneath, in case of problems.

- Special interactions with the Ancient Fuelweaver, the Ancient Guardian, the Shadow Pieces and the twins (they are summoned with nightmare fuel) these bosses, once defeated could become summons for Maxwell as fighters (not with their actual stats of course), they would allow an interesting progression curve in my opinion.

- Like wickerbottom he could make the new moon appear with the Codex Umbra

- from the point of view of Lore Maxwell feels safe when he has the Codex Umbra on him, this could be reflected in game with a 10% reduction of all damage received (as seen in wolfgang's shorts, when he keeps it preciously with him)

- As Maxwell is fragile, he could benefit from a free resurrection, on one of his statues for example.

- I would like to see him become the new character with a progression throughout the game (WX used to fill this role, before their rework) he would become stronger and stronger.

- In return the Gestalt and Greater Gestalt would always be aggressive towards him.

As we know the excessive use of nightmare fuel was fatal to the old ones, why not mirror it with Maxwell who would have a negative impact by using it too much? Why not a very powerful but uncontrollable, temporary transformation (as already proposed here), which would attack everything living within its reach (why not even allies, very risky against Klaus)

Of course what I propose is not necessarily the most balanced and I'm sure that Klei already has great ideas in mind to offer us an incredible rework.

[Bumber64]

21 hours ago, Cheggf said:

So? 

So they're both outclassed as harvesters by Wurt. There's no actual reason Maxwell shouldn't be able to stop his puppets without punching them, or that they should die after X days. Certainly not for Woodie's sake.

[Cheggf]

5 hours ago, Bumber64 said:

So they're both outclassed as harvesters by Wurt. There's no actual reason Maxwell shouldn't be able to stop his puppets without punching them, or that they should die after X days. Certainly not for Woodie's sake.

Wurt is slower and much more expensive than Maxwell. The only way to gather better than Maxwell is to use bearger. 

[abrocator]

On 8/15/2022 at 2:00 AM, Bumber64 said:

I'm pretty sure she can recruit many with a single food item (such as stone fruit that they can crack open easily.)

You can’t recruit them with the stone fruit itself. Why would you say such a thing?

[ArubaroBeefalo]

46 minutes ago, abrocator said:

You can’t recruit them with the stone fruit itself. Why would you say such a thing?

merms? you can hire them with stone fruit... and even seeds..

[MA7xGE]

I have a wild wish; in the animated shorts, Maxwell is often talking; a few times with a human voice.

I sincerely hope Klei would add a distance-based Voice chat, making far away chatter quieter and quieter... BUT Maxwell could talk with and hear EVERYONE, no matter where they were.

I'm not expecting this, but I expect a thing like this; a perk within a skillset we didn't know we had until the rework.

 

 

Alternatively, I hope his power level follows the amount of other unique characters - he was the one bringing them to the constant anyways. It would definitely encourage players to play as a full team of all 18 unique characters - all getting small tweaks to make teamwork even more important. 

 

Third alternative, Maxwell's presence could raise the game's difficulty. Charlie definitely wants to fight him!

 

Last alternative, I could see Maxwell (the extremely interesting antagonist) and Wilson (the boring as manure protagonist) having some kind of a relation perk-wise. I hope Maxwell is reworked last, or the next rework get's cancelled for the sake of small tweaks to existing reworks* and they both get released simultaneously.

*(Make people want to play as Woodie or Warly, add REAL downsides to characters, and so on).

Whatever the rework is going to be, Klei and ALL OF US know, that this one needs to be a success. And we all want it, and the character needs it!

 

I'm hopeful Klei is giving us hints in the form of hearts.

[Bumber64]

On 8/15/2022 at 11:09 PM, Cheggf said:

Wurt is slower and much more expensive than Maxwell. The only way to gather better than Maxwell is to use bearger. 

Berries/seeds and a trip to the swamp (where you're probably based) is slower and more expensive than NF?

[douan33]

He should spawn duelists like in forge

[WebberMain]

On 8/14/2022 at 5:35 PM, 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.

He ruled an entire dimension and has acces to dark magic. Idk about you, but that sounds pretty cool to me

[Cheggf]

7 hours ago, Bumber64 said:

Berries/seeds and a trip to the swamp (where you're probably based) is slower and more expensive than NF?

Permanently altering your entire gameplan and spending a bunch of time and resources setting up is more expensive than spending 3 nightmare fuel, less than a single dark sword, to get a year's supply of wood, yes. 

[Wonz]

I have feeling it won't be better than that certain popular mod. Place your bets.

[maxwell_winters]

8 minutes ago, Wonz said:

I have feeling it won't be better than that certain popular mod. Place your bets.

Which mod? Most mods I saw revolve around puppets and afk gaming. Klei can easily outdo that by adding more interactive abilities with shadow magic. 

[Loonytoony]

I just want some kind of confirmation that he was summoning light in this comic frame of the William carter puzzles and not him just turning up the light of the lamp on the desk