Let's talk Woodie

[Mysterious box]

So recently I've been playing Woodie more lately and I've had some thoughts on the weremoose and the were mechanic as a whole.

First off the were mechanic in general feels very punishing you have a constant sanity drain of 6 per minute on top of whatever the sanity drain is of whatever your interacting with and a additional 15 sanity, 20 hp immediately from eating the idol, and all of your hunger. I feel like a better alternative here would be to make eating the idol cost 25 sanity and the wereforms 10 sanity per minute but allow them to ignore passive sanity drain from other sources since you already can't use items in this state. Next up transforming and de-transforming states should grant Woodie invincibility during and remove aggro while it's going on it's nothing but a cheap shot to be forced to stay still and take damage with no armor on. The last topic on the general were mechanic I'd like to touch on is the duration I feel 4 minutes is fine but I feel like the timer shouldn't go down fast just because we're not performing a task. I know I might be speaking for myself when I say I find the wereforms the most fun part of Woodie, but I feel like you should be able to take your time more when using the forms and this is especially felt in the moose form where you could end up losing a lot of your meter from walking to one mob to the next or because you need to tell your teammate something. I feel like there should just be a revert button but in exchange for using it you could potentially just make it so you'd lose all the sanity you would have lost for the entire 4 minutes immediately as well as making it so Woodie can't turn back at all during a full moon.

There's already been talk about how the moose isn't very useful for combat outside of killing trash mobs but even if his damage output isn't changed I feel like there are a few things that could make the experience better in general. Each wereform to a extent is a different experience than base Woodie but in most cases the moose's disadvantages outweigh the upsides. He's slower than normal players, can't heal, and prone to getting stunlocked on failed charges. So how about if he was given some of the benefits bosses can partake in by making him unable to be stun locked as well as giving the ability to heal himself while he's in the moose state by using his sanity. The idea would be he could do some animation in the moose form where he converts his sanity to hp at a rate of 2 sanity to 1 hp kind of like a boss's regen mechanic but with the risk of going insane and if he has no sanity he wouldn't be able to heal this way. This would incorporate healing into this form via a limited resource that's constantly draining while he's in the form adding a layer of risk to healing.

 

And those are my thoughts on it what do you all think?

[MadMatt]

Mang, why is it always discussion about the Moose. If anything about Woodie needs to be changed the Werebeaver needs to be made actually viable because currently it's a joke.

The Weregoose and Moose have their niches, are convenient to use under certain conditions, and offer uniquely strong abilities. They're situational, but powerful in those situations. The Werebeaver lacks any situational strength because not only is he ineffective at gathering (straight up slower of a miner and worse than hiring 3 pigmen) but the cost is egregious for how much logs or rocks a player would ever practically need. 

The Wereforms feel like they're missing the third member of the trio. Woodie is supposed to be a generalist character first and foremost facilitated by the multiple Wereforms, not a combat only character. ALL his Wereforms need to be tweaked frankly, because the concept as a whole is half-baked and fails at whatever it was trying to go for.

Anyways yeah it'd be nice if the Wereforms were buffed, maybe this thread will be the straw to break the camel's back!

[maxwell_winters]

I think Klei didn't want to make Woodie's wereforms too good because idols are extremely cheap. In general, his progression is straight up the worst in the game. All his crafts are made with extremely basic resources that don't reward exploration at all. He doesn't get stronger with time by collecting resources like most characters do. He and Willow desperately need a rework part 2. He should get his upgraded forms. Make him the lunar character we've been asking for with lunar-enhanced idols that turn him into a lunar mutant-looking creature. That would immediately boost him from an outcast to one of the coolest characters in the game.

37 minutes ago, Mysterious box said:

So how about if he was given some of the benefits bosses can partake in by making him unable to be stun locked

He has immunity to knockback from the Nightmare Werepig. He's really good against that boss.

[Masked Koopa]

A discussion I had recently brought up the idea of being able to eat in wereform, which seems like a fun way to add some power boosts that are somewhat conditional, as well as some time-limited unique diets.

For example, the weremoose could have the same diet as a beefalo, (including stuff like twigs, grass, beefalo treats, etc).

The Goose could eat exclusively seeds.

And the beaver could eat wood, twigs, pinecones, etc.

Each form could gain unique benefits from remaining fed, aside from the obvious benefit of being able to heal as weremoose. Goose runs faster and maybe lasts longer too, beaver can chop faster or perhaps gains some sort of AOE tail slap that instantly chops trees in an AOE, and moose moves faster, gets a shorter CD on his charge, punches faster and/or harder, that sort of thing.

In order to encourage progression, you could even make it so higher "quality" foods result in a superior effect.

For example, perhaps the weregoose is much more potent if it uses rare and/or a variety of different crop seeds, meaning you wanna farm a variety of crops in order to maximise your goose's potency.

The Werebeaver might be most potent if you eat living logs, which are something that isn't super available early on, but you tend to have in abundance if you do a lot of tree farming.
 

And the moose might be most potent if it uses beefalo treats and/or crock pot foods containing farm crops like potato souffle or veggie stinger or dpie.

[Dextops]

1 hour ago, MadMatt said:

The Weregoose and Moose have their niches, are convenient to use under certain conditions, and offer uniquely strong abilities. They're situational, but powerful in those situations. The Werebeaver lacks any situational strength because not only is he ineffective at gathering (straight up slower of a miner and worse than hiring 3 pigmen) but the cost is egregious for how much logs or rocks a player would ever practically need. 

In my honest opinion i think they all need a massive tune. I can’t think of many scenarios which are actually frequent or prevalent later on where I would actually ever use any of woodies transformations over stuff you could just get normally. 

[Mike23Ua]

I just want Moose to be able to lock arms with a Deerclops like you’d see in wrestling.

[Mysterious box]

1 hour ago, MadMatt said:

Mang, why is it always discussion about the Moose. If anything about Woodie needs to be changed the Werebeaver needs to be made actually viable because currently it's a joke.

I'd argue the beaver is most fine of the bunch of them yea I get collecting the loot after is a pain but he's still great at what he does even if he's not the best at it

 

1 hour ago, MadMatt said:

The Weregoose and Moose have their niches, are convenient to use under certain conditions, and offer uniquely strong abilities. They're situational, but powerful in those situations.

The only situation the moose is strong is at farming trash mobs otherwise your generally handicapping yourself using it and even then using the charge can still be very dangerous against them.

 

[Spino43]

Woodie's main problem is everything he does gets horribly weak as the game goes on.

His chopping perk is nowhere near bearger's

His movement perk (goose) is basically useless once you map everything, and walking cane or beefalo will more than enough provide you with speed boosts.

His fighting perk (moose) is also not good, his damage is weaker than someone with hambat (slower dps), his armor is okay I guess, his speed is also nerfed, and he can't even heal during combat.

Even his beard insulation is outclassed by webber.

He also suffers horribly from the moonstorm. Also, his transformation forced him to be starved. If you have a fully belly and you transform? Well now you are starved.

It's sad to admit that in late game wes is probably more useful and less annoying to play than woodie.

[Yuuko]

5 hours ago, Masked Koopa said:

A discussion I had recently brought up the idea of being able to eat in wereform, which seems like a fun way to add some power boosts that are somewhat conditional, as well as some time-limited unique diets.

I dig it.

Currently when you transform your entire inventory hud drops.  Maybe instead it can just X out anything that form can't use.  Each form can have things it can eat, and these things tie into mechanics of the form.  Some foods could refill the weremeter while others deplete it.  Eat a different idol to go straight from one form to another.  Some more rare recipes could even heal you, restore your sanity, or power up your moves.

I think that would be a good avenue to enhance the weredude to match better with the game as it exists now.

[MadMatt]

6 hours ago, Dextops said:

In my honest opinion i think they all need a massive tune. I can’t think of many scenarios which are actually frequent or prevalent later on where I would actually ever use any of woodies transformations over stuff you could just get normally. 

Yeah, they all need to be looked at again, but they at least have SOMETHING at some point of the game. The Werebeaver is just impractical if not a simply worse option compared to others that anyone can use for the same purpose.

6 hours ago, Mysterious box said:

I'd argue the beaver is most fine of the bunch of them yea I get collecting the loot after is a pain but he's still great at what he does even if he's not the best at it

He is WORSE than WOODIE at gathering. That's the thing that makes him so awful, there is almost no incentive to use him compared to your base form, even for the task he was designed for! Why would I waste 3 monster meat, 20 health, 20-40 sanity, and any excess hunger I have to chop twice as fast when it takes me roughly the same time to chop and collect the few number of logs I need as Woodie? Even if he is any faster it's by such an insignificant margin not worth the egregious stat loss in 90% of practical situations. 

I cannot tell you the last time I have used the Beaver to any good effect, because the Beaver isn't actually a resource gatherer. He is essentially just an infinite multi-tool which is a pretty useless ability when you know how to get an abundance of flint and twigs, let alone gold. 

[Cheggf]

Only problem with Woodie is he drops stuff when he transforms, which is annoying.

[Mysterious box]

25 minutes ago, Cheggf said:

Only problem with Woodie is he drops stuff when he transforms, which is annoying.

That's why it's best to use a backpack with Woodie for extra storage on transformations since it's the only thing excluded from this.

8 hours ago, MadMatt said:

He is WORSE than WOODIE at gathering. That's the thing that makes him so awful, there is almost no incentive to use him compared to your base form, even for the task he was designed for! Why would I waste 3 monster meat, 20 health, 20-40 sanity, and any excess hunger I have to chop twice as fast when it takes me roughly the same time to chop and collect the few number of logs I need as Woodie? Even if he is any faster it's by such an insignificant margin not worth the egregious stat loss in 90% of practical situations. 

This more or less applies to all the forms base Woodie is a much better fighter than his "fighting mode" while not the biggest consolation I consider the beaver's useful when on a team with teammate who can pick up after him ideally with a lazy forager.

[MadMatt]

6 minutes ago, Mysterious box said:

This more or less applies to all the forms base Woodie is a much better fighter than his "fighting mode"

But the Moose is better than Woodie at fighting certain mobs, even if trash, and has a few good boss fights. There are situations where it makes sense to use the Moose, but basically never does it make sense to use the Beaver. If the Beaver needs another player to be of any use, then it's useless tbh and is bad even compared to the other wereforms.

[Mysterious box]

37 minutes ago, MadMatt said:

But the Moose is better than Woodie at fighting certain mobs, even if trash

While it's faster to do it this way it's also often very risky due to stunlocks and the fact mobs can end up eating some of the loot while your fighting meaning you often end up with less than you would fighting as human Woodie even if it's slower.

 

37 minutes ago, MadMatt said:

and has a few good boss fights. There are situations where it makes sense to use the Moose

I've found that it's less that he's good at them and more so they're "doable with him" never do you actually feel the form is the best course of action against a boss but more so that you can use it which feels very similar to the beaver in that regard. Really stop and think about it when it comes to boss fights with it. In exchange for 20 hp, 15 sanity, -6 per minute sanity drain, lowered attack speed, lowered movement speed, and the need to stay in combat to avoid transforming back too fast mid fight. You get hambat damage, 90% damage reduction, night vision, knockback immunity and a charge attack. You take on so many risks using it that the payout isn't really worth it.

37 minutes ago, MadMatt said:

If the Beaver needs another player to be of any use, then it's useless tbh and is bad even compared to the other wereforms.

I consider this debatable because in said scenario he's still very useful vs the moose's somewhat useful state at his peak. Much like the moose he has niche applications that can come up even if they're mainly in a multiplayer setting like this, toadstool's trees(assuming your not using a weather pain) or chopping down lunar mushtrees. I do understand though that each of the forms are more so fun than useful at the end of the day though.

[PetulantPansy]

17 hours ago, MadMatt said:

Mang, why is it always discussion about the Moose. If anything about Woodie needs to be changed the Werebeaver needs to be made actually viable because currently it's a joke.

The Weregoose and Moose have their niches, are convenient to use under certain conditions, and offer uniquely strong abilities. They're situational, but powerful in those situations. The Werebeaver lacks any situational strength because not only is he ineffective at gathering (straight up slower of a miner and worse than hiring 3 pigmen) but the cost is egregious for how much logs or rocks a player would ever practically need. 

The Wereforms feel like they're missing the third member of the trio. Woodie is supposed to be a generalist character first and foremost facilitated by the multiple Wereforms, not a combat only character. ALL his Wereforms need to be tweaked frankly, because the concept as a whole is half-baked and fails at whatever it was trying to go for.

Anyways yeah it'd be nice if the Wereforms were buffed, maybe this thread will be the straw to break the camel's back!

In fairness, if you're still gathering logs by hand in the late game, werebeaver is a decent choice because he wont spawn treeguards/poison birchnuts

15 hours ago, Mysterious box said:

I'd argue the beaver is most fine of the bunch of them yea I get collecting the loot after is a pain but he's still great at what he does even if he's not the best at it

 

The only situation the moose is strong is at farming trash mobs otherwise your generally handicapping yourself using it and even then using the charge can still be very dangerous against them.

 

weremoose can kill klaus solo with probably 3-6 perogies and 3 idols. It's actually a pretty fun fight with moose

[MadMatt]

Just now, Mysterious box said:

I've found that it's less that he's good at them and more so they're "doable with him" never do you actually feel the form is the best course of action against a boss but more so that you can use it which feels very similar to the beaver in that regard.

The Moose can at least match with other options, which is far more than the Beaver can boast about.

If you need less than 3 stacks of logs, Woodie with Lucy is just faster and cheaper. If you need more, the Beaver starts to save time but just barely. In my testing, Woodie with Lucy and not digging stumps can chop 34 trees in around 2 minutes and 20 seconds to get around 100 logs. The Werebeaver chopping 25 trees and gnawing the stump for 100 logs saves you only 20 seconds. That is horrendous, ignoring pigmen, bearger, maxwell, what have you. The only way you start to get favorable numbers for the Werebeaver is if you are chopping a truly outrageous number of trees, but then virtually every single other option is 10x better and when all the Wereforms experience their extreme drop off into uselessness.

The point i'm trying to make is that the Moose and Goose at least offer something that can be useful in certain situations in some way at some point in time. The Beaver is inferior to the options made available to Woodie at the start of the game. That goes far beyond Woodie being able to outmatch the Goose and Moose after rushing ruins, killing Mactusk, and taming a Beefalo; the Beaver is effectively obsolete Day 1.

8 minutes ago, PetulantPansy said:

In fairness, if you're still gathering logs by hand in the late game, werebeaver is a decent choice because he wont spawn treeguards/poison birchnuts

Basically the only scenario, but this assumes that you don't want living logs even though dark swords would most likely be your main weapon of choice. Even then, Pigmen and Merms in large enough numbers can handle Treeguards so quickly there's no reason to not use them instead if we're talking late enough into the game where Treeguard spawn rates actually matter.

[Mysterious box]

2 minutes ago, MadMatt said:

The point i'm trying to make is that the Moose and Goose at least offer something that can be useful in certain situations in some way at some point in time. The Beaver is inferior to the options made available to Woodie at the start of the game. That goes far beyond Woodie being able to outmatch the Goose and Moose after rushing ruins, killing Mactusk, and taming a Beefalo; the Beaver is effectively obsolete Day 1.

Woodie outmatches the moose the second you build a alchemy engine which depending on world gen is day 1-3 in most cases. The goose still remains situationally useful post ruins however depending on how engaged you are with ocean content.

[MadMatt]

5 minutes ago, Mysterious box said:

Woodie outmatches the moose the second you build a alchemy engine

Spider quarry? Frog ponds? Shadow Splumonkeys? Shadow creatures? Did I forget an alch invention that gives you similar AOE against those mobs like the Moose?

If it's about moose charging being dangerous to getting stunlocked, just a bit of practice knocks out most of the danger of that happening. Besides, the risk of getting ganked isn't removed as non-weremoose.

[Ardcrumb]

I just think with tomatoes added he should be able to make ketchup chips

[Mysterious box]

15 minutes ago, MadMatt said:

Spider quarry? Frog ponds? Shadow Splumonkeys? Shadow creatures? Did I forget an alch invention that gives you similar AOE against those mobs like the Moose?

If it's about moose charging being dangerous to getting stunlocked, just a bit of practice knocks out most of the danger of that happening. Besides, the risk of getting ganked isn't removed as non-weremoose.

You tend to lose a fair bit of monster meat going about it this way. That aside I just find it's generally safer and less resource consuming to fight them normally I'm aware of how to properly charge but it feels like a form that already juggles so many disadvantages despite being specialized in combat so it shouldn't have a potential to suffer so harshly on a unfortunate charge but I won't lie and say I don't use it to clear mobs. But it's because of that I see the moose as the 3rd best option for clearing hordes.

[Riddla]

Woodie is conceptually thrilling, he just needs more room for growth as the game progresses.

Early-game he's pretty damn powerful, because of how dirt cheap idol recipes are enough to let you stockpile on necessary resources with them.
Beaver is your swiss army knife if one is low on flint/gold.
Moose conjures you a slightly weaker Marble Suit, almost-but-not-really-Hambat, and he has a pretty damn fun AoE which lets you obliterate tiny bastards en masse - imo, one of the biggest upsides out of all his Wereforms.
Goose morphs you into Jesus. That's all with night vision! And a cool music!

However, all those idols are stuck at such potential right from beginning. Pretty much your only way to grow further is to rely on your teammates through their buffs, like Wigfrid, Warly, Wortox, etc.. One notable exception, however, would be Jellybeans. That's it. (no, go away with your tillweed salve wtf)
 

Sooner or later, when you feel comfortable enough with the game to courageously stockpile on strong resources, you'll simply replace the forms with them, because the drawbacks the wereforms bring are very punishing and do not feel as rewarding anymore. You unwrap a delicious looking candy that gives you fascinating strength in the form of free night vision, free 'marble armor', free 'hambat', free grass boat, etc., but then you taste it, and it turns out to be liquorice. You can't restore stats, you cannot do anything with your inventory, you cannot interact with the world other than punching something or kicking a tree in the groin. You either then only use wereforms out of boredom, or to challenge yourself with those drawbacks.

Weremoose brims a lot with potential. Animation cancelling for sweet DPS boost? That's a great micro skill expression. However, all of that effort just results in hambat damage. Yes, fine early-game once again, but what about later?
His Charge? Absolutely sweet. Satisfying to ram into 96 frogs and make them explode into meat drops. Against bosses, or dangerous singular entities? It's good... for escaping! Lame. Cowardly. I'd love if you could ram into big entities and deal bigger damage, or inflict some sort of tiny stun, or deflect their attack with that nasty headbutt, without running through them of course. Make the charge stop preemptively and act like you've hit the edge of the ocean.


It's fair for Wereforms to be a very fun, alternative way of playing and performing tasks. Maybe someone is tired of bearger or pigs or constant chopping, so you just want to go nuts with gnawing. They just need a way to catch up, their strength is static. Hell, I'd absolutely love if Wereforms had even bigger potential in strength, but still keep them as a double-edged sword for the 'curse' theme.
 

There are a lot of exciting ideas to think of.
Planar/Moon Idols perhaps? Incredibly strong upsides and potential, with dangerous consequence(s) you have to keep your eye on through skill expression.
Amulets could also serve as a very simple, yet effective buff. (Maybe also sprinkle in body slot items overall. Bramble Husks, Scalemail, etc., a lot of potent effects that can mold into wereforms, as long as they don't give any defense lol).
What if Wereforms could grow through adaptation the more injured/insane they are? That can give a proper adrenaline kicker as you're fighting for your life. Weremoose could remain to be a designated tank relying on his endurance, and Werebeaver could be a rabid serial murderer with those teeth by letting his damage grow during combat - a potential "glass cannon" compared to Weremoose's tankiness.

[Cloakingsumo198]

3 hours ago, PetulantPansy said:

 Weremoose can kill klaus solo

Maybe it's just me but it feels like you set the bar real down low.

[Pedrolar27]

On 4/15/2023 at 7:16 PM, Mysterious box said:

So recently I've been playing Woodie more lately and I've had some thoughts on the weremoose and the were mechanic as a whole.

First off the were mechanic in general feels very punishing you have a constant sanity drain of 6 per minute on top of whatever the sanity drain is of whatever your interacting with and a additional 15 sanity, 20 hp immediately from eating the idol, and all of your hunger. I feel like a better alternative here would be to make eating the idol cost 25 sanity and the wereforms 10 sanity per minute but allow them to ignore passive sanity drain from other sources since you already can't use items in this state. Next up transforming and de-transforming states should grant Woodie invincibility during and remove aggro while it's going on it's nothing but a cheap shot to be forced to stay still and take damage with no armor on. The last topic on the general were mechanic I'd like to touch on is the duration I feel 4 minutes is fine but I feel like the timer shouldn't go down fast just because we're not performing a task. I know I might be speaking for myself when I say I find the wereforms the most fun part of Woodie, but I feel like you should be able to take your time more when using the forms and this is especially felt in the moose form where you could end up losing a lot of your meter from walking to one mob to the next or because you need to tell your teammate something. I feel like there should just be a revert button but in exchange for using it you could potentially just make it so you'd lose all the sanity you would have lost for the entire 4 minutes immediately as well as making it so Woodie can't turn back at all during a full moon.

There's already been talk about how the moose isn't very useful for combat outside of killing trash mobs but even if his damage output isn't changed I feel like there are a few things that could make the experience better in general. Each wereform to a extent is a different experience than base Woodie but in most cases the moose's disadvantages outweigh the upsides. He's slower than normal players, can't heal, and prone to getting stunlocked on failed charges. So how about if he was given some of the benefits bosses can partake in by making him unable to be stun locked as well as giving the ability to heal himself while he's in the moose state by using his sanity. The idea would be he could do some animation in the moose form where he converts his sanity to hp at a rate of 2 sanity to 1 hp kind of like a boss's regen mechanic but with the risk of going insane and if he has no sanity he wouldn't be able to heal this way. This would incorporate healing into this form via a limited resource that's constantly draining while he's in the form adding a layer of risk to healing.

 

And those are my thoughts on it what do you all think?

That ship has already sailed

[Evelo]

Lucy needs more love. Woodie is a lunatic Lumberjack first, cursed werecreature second. I think at least.

[Gashzer]

I agree with Cheggf, all woodie needs is to not drop his headslot/handslot/body slot armour/items when transforming and he will be all good. This will allow him to tank a hit with a football helmet while going into and out of transforming.

Hate when people compare bearger to woodie. You get awesome wood chopping power from day 1 when its most useful in setting up a base. You access bearger a whopping almost 10hours into your server. There is no debate, woodie is leagues better at wood chopping than bearger