Wurt should benefit more from Durians

[JazzyGames]

As a long-time Wurt stan who has enjoyed hundreds of hours playing as her, I am strongly of the mind that Wurt should receive some additional benefit from farming durians.

As of right now, durians give Wurt 48.25 hunger. This takes into account both her 33% hunger bonus from fruits as well as the extra 15 hunger as her favorite food. I believe that she was already receiving some sort of hunger bonus from durians as a character bonus before the "favorite food" mechanic was added, meaning that mechanic was much less impactful on her than it was for other characters.

Compared to other plants Durians are tough to grow: they demand a lot of compost, are only in season during Spring and have very limited uses aside from feeding merms. Pumpkins by contrast are in season half the year, require fewer nutrients, restore more hunger to Wurt, and heal for 8 when cooked. I can not think of any good reason for a Wurt player to favor durians over pumpkins.

Why not give Wurt a unique reason to farm durians? I propose a nominal sanity gain. We can treat that as a character bonus that is separate from the "favorite food" mechanic that every character receives for a certain type of food and will give a nice reason to farm durians during Spring. This food was always intended to provide a benefit to Wurt prior to the favorite foods, and considering the effort to grow durians exclusively for Wurt this doesn't seem like a big ask.

Thoughts?

[ShadowbirdRH]

I think you could really improve your situation through intercropping durians with dragonfruit. 2 dragonfruit add as much compost to the soil as 1 durian consumes, while 2 durians add as much manure as 1 dragonfruit consumes. Depending on how you set it up, you'll either have to add manure or compost, but not as much as you would need if you only grow one kind of crop. Dragonfruits are also great for Wurt as you can make Dragonpies with 3 eggs as filler, making meats usable in a sense. I typically set up farming plots in two-tile modules, 9 plots per tile; 3 rows, 6 columns. First and last two columns of one crop, middle two columns as the other, that arrangement fulfills the 5+ group condition for optimizing your plants' condition. With Durian/Dragonfruit/Durian, you'd only have to add half as much compost than if you only grew durians, while if you grew Dragonfruit/Durian/Dragonfruit, you wouldn't need any compost at all, and instead need to add manure.

All that aside, I think Wurt has enough going for her to not be in any particular need of any additional buffs. That said, it's never made that much sense to me that the favorite foods mechanic grants bonus fullness rather than bonus sanity, so I would think durians should perk up Wurt's sanity, as well as pomegranates giving sanity to Wortox, unhindered by his reduced appreciation of physical food.

EDIT: Thinking more about it, what durians could really use as a buff, especially in regard to Wurt, would be a new crock pot dish that specifically requires durians, possibly also kelp fronds. Something that most characters would gag on, but Wurt would love.

[JazzyGames]

I love the idea of a durian-specific dish, and in general I think there are tons of crops that could benefit from more of their own dishes. Thinking pomegranate, durian, garlic, pepper, etc.

And yeah I like pairing durian with dragonfruit and pomegranate. All crops are fairly straightforward to grow, durian just happens to have more seasonal restrictions than other crops and I never understood why. Seems like they should offer a little extra benefit for the work.

[Frosty_Mentos]

What about we think not about food, but durians could be a spiky hambat alternative?

[ArubaroBeefalo]

@Frosty_Mentosa slow stack but high damage rooting weapon perhaps?

@Frosty_Mentos

[Frosty_Mentos]

@ArubaroBeefalo Rooting weapons might work better for Wormwood, don't you think? Or some kind of non character rooting weapon would be cool too but - I don't see that in durian. I'd see it more of a fear weapon - the stench of it would panic mobs perhaps.

[ArubaroBeefalo]

@Frosty_Mentos by rooting i mean having freshness bar instead of durability

@Frosty_Mentos by rooting i mean having freshness bar instead of durability

[ShadowbirdRH]

Oh, you mean rotting. Kinda off-topic, but a board and a bunch of hound's teeth would make a fine nailbat, sort of like a craftable tentacle spike.

Weaponized durians might be better as a sort of stink bomb/panic grenade, doing little damage if any, but causing afflicted enemies to run around randomly as if on fire, but without the risk of setting things ablaze.

[Frosty_Mentos]

@ArubaroBeefaloyes

tho I think it should be available for all to be crafted instead of just her alone. I just think she just would enjoy it more than murdering pigs over it, even if she would likely enjoy pig murdering.

[partythyme]

I thought about a reason for Wurt to farm durians had the silliest thought of Wurt wearing a durian like a fashion melon

I was thinking that it could be armor that lasts as long as its fresh (like a ham bat, the durian hat's effectiveness goes down as it spoils).