Should Winona get another update?

[Lyserus]

I personally am quite satisfied with most of the characters, most of them are quite unique and even non-pro players can remember their specialties.

Howevewr Winona is the least favorite.

Her abilities are not that bad, I give her that. However she suffers from several major drawback:

1. She can be dropped after finishing her things (just craft a bunch of tapes, set up catapults on base etc)

2. All her structures can be used by others (add on to the first point, she is not needed after everything is done)

3. She got no combat specialty except for catapult (most other characters have combat perks one way or ther other, even wormwood got spiky armors. Her catapult is not something that can be used efficiently on travel)

4. Her structures has limitations (cannot turn off, it burns your supplies)

5. Her craft speed buff is ignorable in most cases.

 

I think she can get some buffs like:

1. Craftable gears. It fits her character lore and craftable gears is quite good. Still it is something she can craft and drop tho, but definitely more important than trusty tapes.

2. Improve her structures. Have a switch feature to turn engine on or off being the first and most needed improvement.

3. Some combat specialty. I think Wheeler's dodge ability is quite good on her, combining dodge and her faster craft speed, crafting in combat becomes possible and it might be something that can turn the tide in dire situation.

4. Hunger drain rework. She should get a plain crafting speed boost normally (without hunger drain) and every time she craft during combat it will be even faster and drain a set amount of hunger. Dodge can also spend her hunger. Or, change all of these from hunger drain to sanity drain

 

[MikoFanboy]

personally, I think her, Woodie and Webber still need a second refresh

 

[Yuuko]

idk, too much focus on the craft and swap potential, which I don't think is a problem.  Any character can be craft and swap, and imo trying to hit that with a hammer won't make people play her.  I'd rather focus on the parts of her kit that aren't smooth - the parts that negatively impact players who already DO pick to just play as her.

For me it ultimately comes down to the fact that her kit lacks any early game application.  The generators, catapults, and crafting speed perk are all great things after you've played for ~100 days, but before that its not really that great.  People always accuse her of being a pick/swap character, but she just has nothing to do early game even if you do pick her.

I've suggested this before - I think she should have some more early game focused structures she can build that focus on resource production which will synergize with her reaching her end game builds.  Things like a chainsaw that helps level trees, and a thumper to produce minerals, etc.  She should also receive more / better automation tools.

[flamboyant wolf]

43 minutes ago, Shosuko said:

idk, too much focus on the craft and swap potential, which I don't think is a problem.  Any character can be craft and swap, and imo trying to hit that with a hammer won't make people play her.  I'd rather focus on the parts of her kit that aren't smooth - the parts that negatively impact players who already DO pick to just play as her.

For me it ultimately comes down to the fact that her kit lacks any early game application.  The generators, catapults, and crafting speed perk are all great things after you've played for ~100 days, but before that its not really that great.  People always accuse her of being a pick/swap character, but she just has nothing to do early game even if you do pick her.

I've suggested this before - I think she should have some more early game focused structures she can build that focus on resource production which will synergize with her reaching her end game builds.  Things like a chainsaw that helps level trees, and a thumper to produce minerals, etc.  She should also receive more / better automation tools.

I also don't see swapping thing as that big of an issue, I just think she needs more of... anything tbh. Just more stuff to build. If she could get, say, 3-4 more buildings that tackle different areas of the game(and a buff to spotlight, that would make it actually useful), she would immediately become much better.

 

[Mysterious box]

2 hours ago, MikoFanboy said:

personally, I think her, Woodie and Webber still need a second refresh

 

What's wrong with Webber? I'd argue he's perfect as is.

[ADM]

I would like her to be able to restore burnt structures, as well as other things of course, too bland right now sadly.

[sudoku]

idk once we start giving one character a second rework then people will ask for another and another and before we know it people will start asking for a character to get reworked for the third time. It will never end.

Does that mean she coudnt get a few touch ups or a new craft? No, but id rather not board the refresh train for a second time.

[maxwell_winters]

27 minutes ago, sudoku said:

idk once we start giving one character a second rework then people will ask for another and another and before we know it people will start asking for a character to get reworked for the third time. It will never end.

If all reworks had been of the same quality, no one would have asked for the second round. I don't see threats about revising WX or Wendy, for example. It's always Willow, Woodie and Winona. There are a few suggestions for other characters here and there, but no one is asking for substantial changes like for those three. It's not the case of people being hungry for content. It comes from the frustration that their favorite characters didn't receive the same amount of love from the devs as the other ones. 

The earlier reworks were kinda... testing the water. Characters who were reworked later have way more creative gameplay and versatility. It wouldn't be fair if a character remained lackluster because they got unlucky to be selected first for a rework. 

[ADM]

30 minutes ago, sudoku said:

idk once we start giving one character a second rework then people will ask for another and another and before we know it people will start asking for a character to get reworked for the third time. It will never end.

I don't think so , a lot of characters are in a very good spot and don't need refresh if any minor improvements or consistance with new updates, rarely happen or needed anyway.
But Winona... plus, it's exclusively about gameplay changes now, and not Klei having to release animated shorts, lore work, skins, or anything a refresh required, they could focus on what this year is about and look to solve Winona as a side, but worthy project like it already happened for Wurt, Wortox, and maybe others that I don't recall yet these were already much funnier characters than her. Plus I feel like I saw a lot of good suggestions for Winona these last years on the forums, this could work out really well !

[Lyserus]

5 hours ago, Shosuko said:

idk, too much focus on the craft and swap potential, which I don't think is a problem.  Any character can be craft and swap, and imo trying to hit that with a hammer won't make people play her.  I'd rather focus on the parts of her kit that aren't smooth - the parts that negatively impact players who already DO pick to just play as her.

For me it ultimately comes down to the fact that her kit lacks any early game application.  The generators, catapults, and crafting speed perk are all great things after you've played for ~100 days, but before that its not really that great.  People always accuse her of being a pick/swap character, but she just has nothing to do early game even if you do pick her.

I've suggested this before - I think she should have some more early game focused structures she can build that focus on resource production which will synergize with her reaching her end game builds.  Things like a chainsaw that helps level trees, and a thumper to produce minerals, etc.  She should also receive more / better automation tools.

Quite true, she got nothing going on in early game (except her hunger drains faster)

Maybe a crafty boat? or something that saves the lightning into battery would be nice

[Atkvin]

I disagree on giving Winona more crafts, personally, I think her three unique structures are already plenty, and could use improvements in how they function.

I definitely want her base kit to get more focus, as the.. lack, of one is really what makes her boring and undesirable to play beyond her builds.

A cheaper sewing kit, a free hit from Charlie, and faster/losing hunger for crafting - what fun. All QOL and negligible mechanics that don't shape much of a playstyle or benefit resource-collection for her builds, and improvements to which would make playing her more fun holistically, and shift value from the builds to Winona herself without just nerfing the builds.

 

Here is my suggestion:

When above 50 hunger, all tools, weapons and armor crafted by Winona start off with slightly more durability than 100%, scaling inversely with the quality of the equipment (e.g: 130% for a normal pickaxe, 105% for a thulecite crown)

Winona now loses a chunk of sanity whenever her equipment is broken, and takes a minor sanity hit when destroying structures.

Trusty Tape is no longer usable on clothes. It can be used to fuse two pieces of equipment of the same type to mend them, adding up their individual durability (up to 100%). Still usable on boats!

Speed crafting no longer drains hunger at all!

 

This small rework would make Winona's superior crafting abilities much more valuable to both her and her allies - allowing her to make more durable tools to use for longer while collecting resources towards her builds, as well as craft more durable combat equipment, which ties into her new downside losing sanity when a piece of equipment breaks, like using a weapon for too long, or not kiting well enough with her armor.

To soften this downside, her trusty tapes lose their (frankly, redundant) use as a one-time sewing kit - instead allowing her to stack durabilities of expended gear, encouraging her to hold more than one of any regularly-used tools to mend together to avoid losing sanity unintentionally.

Crafting would no longer drain hunger, but the new higher-durability crafts would also be affected by her hunger, either becoming only 100% max or slightly lower depending on community feedback of their value.

TLDR, Winona would make more sturdy tools and gear, helping her collect resources for her builds - but need to keep track of their durability to avoid losing sanity, and stack breaking items using her tape.

[Starlogy]

Never heard anyone suggest Winona just yanking Wheeler's dodge skill, it's an interesting idea.

To be honest any out-of-the-box suggestion like that is interesting due to her desperately needing something to put her with everyone else. Hell, just buffing her catapult and making it so only she can use the generators would be decent enough.

[Mysterious box]

1 hour ago, Starlogy said:

making it so only she can use the generators would be decent enough.

I never understand doing things like this if people don't find the character interesting enough limiting their cooperation ability isn't going to suddenly make people go: "Oh wow now I really want to play them!" There was even once a horrifying suggestion to make it so Warly had to handfeed people his special dishes in order for people to get the effects to make him less "pick 'n' swap".

[MikoFanboy]

20 hours ago, Mysterious box said:

What's wrong with Webber? I'd argue he's perfect as is.

his original role is to be someone like Wurt, character that want to play with the same character more than with other character

but for some reason, Klei decided turn him into a neutral character type instead of improved his spider side 

I play with Webber's main many time before (post refresh of couse), his spider still get in the away for other character, especially with Wendy (kinda ironic consider Wendy and Webber are quite close in every animation short)

and when both me and my friend play as him together, his sipder are far too weak compare to Wurt's merm.

Also, to reach Wurt level of power, he is force to turn into a moving lag machine

he's basically been powercreep by Wurt and being limited by the game engine due to his desgin, I don't see anything "perfect" about him (except for being a cute spider boi)

 

 

 

[Mysterious box]

1 hour ago, MikoFanboy said:

Also, to reach Wurt level of power, he is force to turn into a moving lag machine

His spiders don't reach Wurt's level of power simply because they were never meant to he has a much higher degree of control over his followers and they're more durable than merms when nurses are introduced to the equation while also requiring no upkeep 

 

1 hour ago, MikoFanboy said:

he's basically been powercreep by Wurt and being limited by the game engine due to his desgin, I don't see anything "perfect" about him (except for being a cute spider boi)

In my experience most content doesn't need more than 10 spiders so long as your using higher tiered spiders and most pcs should be able to handle at least 15-18 assuming there aren't a ton of webbers it's usually fine.

1 hour ago, MikoFanboy said:

but for some reason, Klei decided turn him into a neutral character type instead of improved his spider side 

Him being able to eat any meats not just monster meat with no penalty, sleeping in spider dens, shaving spider dens, and going faster on spiderwebs are all spider mechanics and all of them except maybe the spider web walking are useful beyond being niche.

 

1 hour ago, MikoFanboy said:

he's basically been powercreep by Wurt and being limited by the game engine due to his desgin, I don't see anything "perfect" about him (except for being a cute spider boi)

I would argue this was true before his refresh but afterwards he has his own advantages that make him a worthwhile pick in his own right.

[ShadowDuelist]

On 4/23/2023 at 9:15 AM, Lyserus said:

1. Craftable gears. It fits her character lore and craftable gears is quite good. Still it is something she can craft and drop tho, but definitely more important than trusty tapes.

Why though? Gears outside of WX healing abuse are not important.
Once you made a couple of flingos and fridges you really won't need more, and they are extremely abundant in the ruins, and a common drop from tumbleweeds. Not to mention that you may get more than one clockworks setpiece in the surface. And Winona makes no particular use of them.
In most of our bases they just stockpile after the first ruins cleaning session.

On 4/23/2023 at 9:15 AM, Lyserus said:

3. Some combat specialty. I think Wheeler's dodge ability is quite good on her, combining dodge and her faster craft speed, crafting in combat becomes possible and it might be something that can turn the tide in dire situation.

4. Hunger drain rework. She should get a plain crafting speed boost normally (without hunger drain) and every time she craft during combat it will be even faster and drain a set amount of hunger. Dodge can also spend her hunger. Or, change all of these from hunger drain to sanity drain

This is a fair change. I am not sure how a dodge skill fits her thematically but it would certainly make her a lot more interesting to stay as.

8 hours ago, Atkvin said:

Trusty Tape is no longer usable on clothes. It can be used to fuse two pieces of equipment of the same type to mend them, adding up their individual durability (up to 100%). Still usable on boats!

I'd keep their utility on clothing as it is, it's actually very handy to have 40 fixings in a single slot specially on long lived worlds. The repair-combine perk should be for tools, and non-shadow weapons and armor (like, allow it on tentacle spikes but not on dark swords or thul clubs. Yes on marble suits or BQ helmet, no for night armor. Etc.). Probably not as well on the new lunar weapons and armor due to their magical balance properties.
 

On 4/23/2023 at 9:15 AM, Lyserus said:

Her catapult is not something that can be used efficiently on travel

I think she should be able to turn her crafts into a portable version, just like Warly's crock pot works. So she can carry 2-3 catapults and a power source on the go, deploy when needed, then re bundle and keep going. It would certainly make all the resources spent on each catapult worth it, since you no longer have to give it a single use. And if only Winona can transport and deploy her things, it will make her more versatile, specially in the early game. And definitely more fun to stay as her.

If she got a few more crafts to automate other things that only her can operate it would increase her value even further.
She seems to have designed Jimmy, WX's drone, I see no reason why she couldn't make other type of utility drones that work on fuel

 

[dish-order man]

I want to ask OP something beyond the topic, how should the Chinese character in your avatar be pronounced?

I think it's a bit like '昊（hào）', but it's obvious that the lower part is different. The top horizontal line of your character is longer than the bottom one.

EDIT：i vote to yes.

Me, as one, of course think that Winona is the last attractive one of all characters, she is just boring.

E-EDIT：Willow too

[Lyserus]

2 hours ago, dish-order man said:

I want to ask OP something beyond the topic, how should the Chinese character in your avatar be pronounced?

I think it's a bit like '昊（hào）', but it's obvious that the lower part is different. The top horizontal line of your character is longer than the bottom one.

EDIT：i vote to yes.

Me, as one, of course think that Winona is the last attractive one of all characters, she is just boring.

E-EDIT：Willow too

Thank you for taking an interest in my name XD

You are correct tho, it is pronounced with hao 4th tone.

I think Google is displaying Chinese characters a bit differently, not sure why (I haven't looked if it looks different in simplified/traditional Chinese)

[GenomeSquirrel]

I could see giving her sprinklers, both for crops and summer cooling.

A furnace substitute.

[Brago-sama]

Pipe dream: Winonna can now use nightmare fuel as redstone and (ab)use pistons to create a fuelweaver smasher

[JustExo]

On 4/23/2023 at 5:15 AM, Lyserus said:

I personally am quite satisfied with most of the characters, most of them are quite unique and even non-pro players can remember their specialties.

Howevewr Winona is the least favorite.

Her abilities are not that bad, I give her that. However she suffers from several major drawback:

1. She can be dropped after finishing her things (just craft a bunch of tapes, set up catapults on base etc)

 

This doesn't make the character inherently bad, lots of other characters can be enjoyed in a similar manner, but the issue Winona has is that she doesn't really have anything to set her apart, aside from the structures which are just as good when used by other characters as they are when she herself uses them, so there is no incentive to stick with the character for an extended period of time.
 

 

On 4/23/2023 at 5:15 AM, Lyserus said:

 

2. All her structures can be used by others (add on to the first point, she is not needed after everything is done)

 

This is a huge appeal to the character. The biggest thing that Winona contributes to a server is how much easier she makes things for everyone else. Being able to automate bee queen, set up incredibly strong farms for gems, make hound defenses, all of that is the biggest appeal to playing the character. Winona essentially turns easy mode on for the server, so other characters being able to use them is the best part

On 4/23/2023 at 5:15 AM, Lyserus said:

3. She got no combat specialty except for catapult (most other characters have combat perks one way or ther other, even wormwood got spiky armors. Her catapult is not something that can be used efficiently on travel)

Catapults are one of the strongest tools in the game for farming, which is good enough as far as I'm concerned, the only issue I'd have with her catapults is how much of a drain it is on the server. imo crafting cost should be reduced to 10 rocks per rather than 15. Not every character *needs* a combat related perk in order to be good. 

On 4/23/2023 at 5:15 AM, Lyserus said:

4. Her structures has limitations (cannot turn off, it burns your supplies)

If you mean they require tons of supplies in order to make large amounts of them, then yeah I 100% agree, the amount of resources you need to set up as much winona stuff as you'd want in a world is incredibly high. As far as turning off generators goes, I feel like because winona has the capacity to farm gems with her own tools, the cost of fuel is something that becomes whatever towards the later game.

On 4/23/2023 at 5:15 AM, Lyserus said:

5. Her craft speed buff is ignorable in most cases.

Her crafting speed helps a little bit every here and there, but it's not an insanely good perk, but I don't think it's meant to be. I think winona is meant to be a crafting based character that is meant to make other players lives more convenient through the power of automation. 

 

On 4/23/2023 at 5:15 AM, Lyserus said:

1. Craftable gears. It fits her character lore and craftable gears is quite good. Still it is something she can craft and drop tho, but definitely more important than trusty tapes.

2. Improve her structures. Have a switch feature to turn engine on or off being the first and most needed improvement.

3. Some combat specialty. I think Wheeler's dodge ability is quite good on her, combining dodge and her faster craft speed, crafting in combat becomes possible and it might be something that can turn the tide in dire situation.

4. Hunger drain rework. She should get a plain crafting speed boost normally (without hunger drain) and every time she craft during combat it will be even faster and drain a set amount of hunger. Dodge can also spend her hunger. Or, change all of these from hunger drain to sanity drain

 

Craftable gears isn't somethign that really matters after you make things like iceboxes and flingos, of which you tend to make only a handful, unless you're using them for healing a wx. 

Improving her structures could mean a lot of things, I think adding an on off switch would be helpful, but it's not necessary just due to how the character works imo. As far as general improvements go, I think she just needs the cost of rocks per catapults to go down, and the spotlight needs a secondary effect for it to ever feel worth making

Winona is fine in regards to combat, her catapults help tremendously with tons of boss fights and tons of farms. 

I definitely think her slower crafting speed needs some tweaks because slower crafting at half hunger with a 150 hunger pool is incredibly annoying. 

As far as winona goes, I definitely do think she needs a buff, but I disagree with the methods. it feels like when buffs to the character get brought up, more often than not its not a good assessment of what the character does in a server in which she's played well. 
 

[Gashzer]

Nah Winona definitely does not need a buff. Currently she far outpowers the likes of Wendy who everyone is happy with. Being able to activate catapults using other characters is a massive pro not a con. The only Wendy perk that other people can use is the useless sisturn sanity aura that gets outclassed by tents/walters camper tent/siesta/star caller staff.

As a solo player i have zero reason to play Wendy when i can just make use of Winonas catapults. I can literally switch from Wolfgang to winona, make catapults for the likes of bee queen/ancient fuelweaver/misery toadstool, then switch back. Cause wolfgang is better than wendy and he can make use of catapults. I can switch to wormwood for bramble husks (i like to call it abigail armour) to allow farming of basic mobs just as good as wendy. Celestial portal is very easily rushable before first autumn ends.

Even taking Winona alone without switching, both Winona and Wendy can rush bee queen by day 10 easily (which is both character's most acclaimed act they have over other characters).

However when Winona rushes bee queen she leaves behind her catapults allowing for any other player in the server to repeatedly farm bee queen without needing the winona! Wendy cannot do this.

My point is, if everyone says Winona needs a buff. Then weaker characters like Wendy, without a doubt, need buffs as well. In my opinion both characters are fine.

[dzzydzzy]

my main grievance with Winona is that her unique light craft is pretty useless once the player gets things like starcallers and such, which only leaves her with one useful craft of catapults. The problem is there's little strategy because she only has one tool. And "if all you have is hammer, every problem looks like a nail". It'd be nice to have varied structures to lend itself to unique builds from player to player as opposed to this 9 catapult set up for every farm and call it a day. 

-secondly, this mechanic of being skilled builder is a good concept for introducing a new play-style to a character but is poorly implemented. All it really means right now is crafting in bulk is more rewarding than crafting one offs, and also you better be fed a little bit more if you're trying to craft anything. All of this means in the early game, it's much more punishing to play as her since you won't have reliable food source and will probably need to craft random tools here and there. If she had some efficiency in other areas while being fed, this would play into her abilities even more (which uncomp mode did).

[maxwell_winters]

2 hours ago, Gashzer said:

My point is, if everyone says Winona needs a buff.

That is not what everyone is saying. No one is saying that she's weak. People want an update for her because she's boring and not versatile compared to other characters.

[flamboyant wolf]

2 hours ago, dzzydzzy said:

my main grievance with Winona is that her unique light craft is pretty useless once the player gets things like starcallers and such,

I'll tell you more, it becomes nearly useless once the player gets a firepit. Its max range is very close to that of a full fire pit, however, it only works for a single player in range, is more clunky (requires at least 2 buildings instead of just one fire pit), can't be used for cooking and doesn't raise player's temperature(this could be seen as an upside in summer, but at this point just use endothermic firepit).