Woodie changes

[Sion of War]

Hello, 

I wanted to share my ideas on Woodie. I spent quite a bit of time working this out, so I am pumpt to hear your feedback. 

Playing Woodie often feels like griefing yourself especially compared to other characters so I was hoping to create a change that was healthy and fun for Woodie players while not being overpowered.

 

woodie rework.pdf

[MadMatt]

I'm curious, why is the Werebeaver fine in your opinion? I see this opinion regarding Woodie's wereforms alot, but the Werebeaver seems to be easily the most worthless transformation. What do you use it for, and how is it better than other alternatives?

[Sion of War]

It does what it is supposed to: farm recoursses quickly and with no material cost. It´s major downsides are mostly things unrelated to it´s job, mainly that it turns your hunger to zero, that you can´t pick stuff up and that you are screwed when attacked. All of those problems are resolved by the changes I mentioned so the form and it´s purpose are fine in my eyes. At most it may need some quality of life stuff like being able to move while farming or something, but that´s just minor stuff really. 

I am curious to why you think it is the worst though.

[MadMatt]

Well, the only substantial material cost that it saves when chopping trees really is a shovel, should you choose to use one. I've tested it before and Woodie with 3 Pigmen (which is the same material cost since a beaver idol requires 3 monster meat) is just as fast at picking up around 100-200 logs as the Werebeaver. 

As for mining, the Beaver is straight up slower than a regular Woodie using a pickaxe, since the time you spend walking between rocks is effectively doubled and the Werebeaver has half effectiveness at mining. Not only is the amount of rocks that would make the Beaver materially worth it almost never a consideration, but even if it IS a consideration, Golden Pickaxes are incredibly efficient/convenient and you would have already amassed stacks of gold when you would need as many rocks as the Beaver can provide. 

Add on the all around stat drain and vulnerability, and the Werebeaver is a worse resource gatherer than Woodie. The inability to pick up items as you mine/chop kneecaps Werebeaver's efficiency, and the material cost is minor to begin with and becomes more irrelevant as you clear ruins, Moon Quay, and relocate Pig Village. The Moose and Goose at least have indisputable benefits in exploration and AOE, but the Werebeaver not only lacks significant advantages over Woodie, but comes with a slew of disadvantages that it just doesn't make up for.

I recognize these issues are alleviated with your suggestions, but I fail to see how the Beaver can be considered even remotely fine as is. He is the Wereform in most dire need of a shake up. 

[Sion of War]

I personally find his moose form way worse since it fights worse than base woodie. having access to healing, movementspeed and more control over how many enemies are fight. Although the charge is nice, fighting anything but groups of weak mobs you can kill by charging through them over and over means you take a hit for everything to to the slow speed and kinda messed up attack speed killing your normal kiting. Granted 90% damage reduction is ok, but not getting hit at all is better and the damage can be done with a hambat or darkswords especially since living logs and nightmare fuel are abundand for Woodie. Like I said, with my proposed changes many problems of the beaver get aliviated like vulnerability to something attacking you, but the rest is just quality of life stuff. If you can move while mining or just mine a little faster that would be enough to make this form good at what it is supposed to: mining recoursses fast. 

The goose is kind of fine, but could also need a little quality of life buff like 10% extra movementspeed since a walking cane plus mag gives you the same movementspeed except you can pick up stuff with the only real downside being that you cant walk on water as base Woodie. But since you need to sail over to lunar islands anyway at some point the singular purpose of rushing early isnt really a great selling point for this entire form imo.  

[goatt]

Honestly, I a lot of bad things you mentioned seems to be intentionally put into the game by devs. For example:

1. feeling clunky. It's because of His pre-swing and slow attack speed. And those are obviously intentional.

2. Dropping items during transformation and causing frustration. This is also intentional.

3. Standing and wait out the remaining time. It's a curse, he's stuck in that form. The fact that the meter runs out faster while standing still means the game gives this as the early exist of any forms.

 

I think game is not some UI design. Trade-offs need to feel like trade-offs. In MOBA, a lot of pre-swing, post-swing, continuous casting, turning rate, etc are the subtle aspects of the control that defines some most important characteristics of a hero. In this case, I believe moose are designed to be clunky.

I hold the unpopular opinion about Woodie, which is that he's fine.