Woodie major rework ideas + perks

[Mortalbane]

Why rework?
Don't get me wrong, current Woodie is fine. His mechanics and skill tree seem well done (unlike Wormwood and Wolfgang).
And probably they won't change him, beacuse he is fine - i know that.
My claims against him are that he is not true to his original design. While his current state on the selected path is good, i just don't like the path taken.
I didn't like how his original transformation was done. While unique and very strong, he had to stay near a forest and eat trees, which is not always possible. And if you wanted to farm those trees, you,, well, you ate what u just farmed. And that yellow screen filter, omg.
But his curse really felt like a curse - a thing that you generally try to avoid and suppress, but at the right time you "give in", and reap its power.
I don't like the two extra forms that appeared out of the blue, and their arrival made Woodie jack of all trades and master of none. They made him a druid who transforms at will and with no price.
His current forms, especially the Goose, is a step away from the things that Don't Starve is associated with - dark, twisted, macabre.
This is not bad, i just wanted to stick to his original design - be strong and cool, but temporarily. Turn into a monster.
I don't like that they forgot Lucy, and that Woodie doesn't have any lore. In his animated short he just fought a tree guard.
And finally, after the introduction of the Moon and its power, all pieces of the puzzle snapped together in my head.


Lore rework
Well, is it a rework, if i don't know his lore? Does he even have lore? Did devs agree on whether Lucy is alive, or Woodie is just crazy?
Anyway, here's my vision.

Lucy was once a woman. She was nice, but had neurotic and hysterical tendencies. She hated trees and was always afraid of being abandoned. That's why she married a loyal and patient lumberjack, who happened to be a bit crazy too.
Once upon a time, during a full moon, Lucy stumbled upon a strange glowing rock, or a piece of glass. It had a perfect, sharp, triangular shape, and had a weird symbol resembling an eye. As she touched the glass, she was sucked into it.
Woodie found the glass (it was screaming his name) and took it home.

Time passed by, Lucy's neurotic tendencies were getting stronger - being stuck inside the glass affected her. Whatever Woodie tried, whoever he asked for help - everything failed, and eventually he gave up on freeing her from the glass, and made an axe out of her. She insisted.
So, now Lucy looked like a regular lumberjack axe, but of a slightly odd color, and had a strange symbol on the blade, resembling an eye.
Until one day, during another full moon, Lucy suddenly transformed into a big and awesome-looking Lunar Axe. As Woodie raised her above his head to take a closer look, he thought for a second, that the moon in the sky is actually a giant eyeball looking at him. And before he knew it, he was standing on the forest turf of the Constant.

As he tried to figure out this new weird place and struggled to survive, he felt that Lucy's strange transformation powers started to affect him as well...


Lucy the Moonglass axe
In addition to her tree-cutting and talking abilities, she has new features:

Throw - right-clicking on enemy, Woodie throws Lucy at that enemy. She will often comment that Woodie is trying to dump her and get rid of her. Lucy travels in a straight line, dealing her regular damage to every mob or tree along the way. Regardless of hit or miss, Lucy is dropped on the ground at the end of the line, and stays there for a moment. Then she flies back to Woodie, damaging things along the way once again. Like a boomerang, but better.
As she returns, Woodie sometimes comments that he wasn't trying to get rid of her, and that he loves her.

Together forever - Lucy can never leave Woodie's main inventory for too long. She always flies back to him when thrown or dropped, if put in a backpack or container, she will drop on the ground and then fly to Woodie. If his inventory is full, she will knock out the left-most item and take its place.

Jealous - when you try to put any other axe in your inventory, Lucy will force you to drop it on the ground, and will make a jealous comment. Woodie can comment that it was not what she thought.

Enlightenment - Lucy gives constant enlightenment, but with greatly reduced annoying screen filter, making it barely noticeable. She gives little when she is in the inventory, a bit more when equipped, even more when she is used or thrown. During the full moon, or in natural enlightenment zones, the enlightenment gain is greatly increased.
So, in natural circumstances, Woodie will never spawn shadow creatures, because he is unable to go insane. Only if you manage to throw Lucy reeeeally far away.
And, as you've probably guessed it, at max Enlightenment Woodie transforms.


The Wereform
At max Enlightenment Woodie transforms. Wanna avoid it - do things that reduce sanity all the time.
Well, actually Lucy transforms first.
She transforms into a big badass Moon Axe. The transformation spreads further from her, as she grows into Woodie's arm, becoming a continuation of it.
Woodie becomes a big monster beaver with moose antlers, goose legs, and feathers growing here and there. He is not cute, not goofy - he is a monster with rabid red eyes and big moon axe growing out of his hand. He is here to kick butts and farm trees. And he has already farmed all the trees.

Woodie loses the ability to throw Lucy.
All his stats increase, including attack and move speed. His attacks chop, mine, uproot and hammer, and do it fast too. He gets some armor and some health regeneration. Nightvision (with less annoying filter) and cold/hot insulation included.
He drops the equipped items on the ground and their slots become locked, he loses access to main inventory.

Woodie's hunger starts to drain fast. You can now eat almost anything to gain hunger - food, twigs, logs, monster meat, silk, rocks, boards, equipment, etc - but hunger values of everything become rather small. None of those items affects your sanity in any way (it's locked at max). Regular health effects of food are gone, but any eaten item causes your health to regenerate, which stacks with your built-in regen, but doesn't stack with itself, only increasing the effect duration.

Transformation lasts for a fixed amount of time.
When it ends, Woodie's sanity becomes 0, but since Lucy is still in his hand, the enlightenment kicks in.
Woodie starts vomiting up every non-food item that he ate while in the Wereform, losing hunger in the process, and losing health up to the half of the current amount. The animation length and stats lost depend on the number of items eaten, so it can potentially take a few seconds and leave you at 0 hunger and low hp. Be careful!

Skill tree

Wereform branch
Here are a few examples of upgrades that Woodie can get:

Moon Slam - every 5th attack in quick succession explodes with moon energy and deals AoE damage. Can be used to chop, mine and uproot.
Funny enough, soon after i thought that Woodie needs a buff to his gathering to match Maxwell, and came up with this skill - Klei added a tail slam for the Beaver. At least here our thoughts align =)

Leap - with right-click Woodie performs a moderate distance jump to the target area. Can be used over obstacles and gaps. Creatures at the landing spot take some damage and are stunned for a few seconds. Has a low cooldown.

Ram - when Woodie right-clicks an object or mob some distance away, he charges into it. Same as the current Weremoose charge. He collides with objects and big enemies like beefalo, deals good damage, but Woodie gets stunned for a short time. This skill takes a moment to charge up, before Woodie rushes at the target.

Any of those skills can be modified and further empowered with perks

Perks can include all forms of buffs to stats of the Wereform, as well as the transformation duration and effects


Lumberjack branch
This branch tries to suppress the curse, instead relying on Woodie's lumberjack and woodworking skills.

Perks can include:
- buffs and new abilities for Lucy
- buffs to tree farming and processing
- reduce costs of wooden equipment
- making new wooden items, like Klei's walking canes and helmets
- making new low to medium tier lunar equipment
- increase the stats of the equipment that Woodie makes
- repair that equipment
- those tree guard shenanigans


Affinity perks
Not done yet.
But as this Woodie is a lunar guy, he can't get shadow perks.
I like Klei's idea about learning to control the curse during the full moon. I'll give it some more thought.

[iMester_GG]

i like every thing that you just sayed 

this means that you really like our crazy lumberjack here and i don't blame you 

i like woodie to but to be honest i like your version and the current version of woodie to so i don't mind him transforming into a mix of 3 deferent animals but yet again i don't know if the gameplay is gonna be as fun as him right now (i need to see your woodie version in depth to judge if your version is better than current version or not )

another point is that no one talks about lucy enough (i mean she is the only piece of lore that we have about woodie since forever ) and i think she needs a few perks in the skill tree more than everything TBH now i think she is just an axe that never break and she feels like a small perk to woodie not a fundamental ability to woodie 

and since woodie is a lunar guy i m excited to see how klei is gonna expand the lunar update and how it will effect woodie (let's not forget that he is cursed and probably he is the most character that need to complete the lunar challenge just so he can be released from his curse)

about your idea:

after klei expand the lunar/shadow updates i wonder where are these updates goona take the future of the game like what is the point of dividing the end game to 2 separate parts? 

are the characters goona divide to 2 teams one is gonna take the lunar part (like woodie to cure himself from the curse ) and the other team taking the shadow part (like wenona and maxwell to  meet Charlie) 

whatever they did i think your version of woodie depends on the future of the game (like if they decide to split the game in 2 direction one for lunar and the other is for the shadows i think your version of woodie would be perfect here in this scenario ) but like i said it all depends on the game's future.

another thing is why woodie is the only character in don't starve that have no lore not even lucy she has no lore even we don't know who she really is like come on klei give our lumberjack (and lucy) a decent lore instead of woodie just fighting a tree!!

BTW i like that you put lucy in your lore but i don't know about the magical crystal just siting around woodie's house part... like we don't need more questions we need answers like who is lucy and how did she meet woodie and how did woodie gets the curse to begin with or who cursed woodie (we literally don't know anything about our lumberjack here ) 

so please klei we need woodie lore 

and about your ideas you really impressed me with your ideas man great work and i hope klei see our comments in the near future.

[Mortalbane]

Thank you for your kind words. You've impressed me too with such a massive comment =)

3 hours ago, iMester_GG said:

after klei expand the lunar/shadow updates i wonder where are these updates goona take the future of the game like what is the point of dividing the end game to 2 separate parts? 

are the characters goona divide to 2 teams one is gonna take the lunar part (like woodie to cure himself from the curse ) and the other team taking the shadow part (like wenona and maxwell to  meet Charlie) 

That is a good question. To be fair, with the current system we are not choosing a side, we are just farming bosses as usual, and we spend skill points on the affinity perks only if we want to. It only creates the impression of choosing a side. That's why in another post i suggested introducing the affinity quests for Charlie and Wagstaff with those perks as rewards.
And no, players are not, and probably will not be separated into the Alliance and the Horde =) I wouldn't want that too, and that would be kinda meh and unfitting.
But anyway, i'm curious about the game direction too. In this add-on we "pick a side", and then what? How will it affect the next add-on? Or are we going to get this Moon vs Shadow content forever?

3 hours ago, iMester_GG said:

BTW i like that you put lucy in your lore but i don't know about the magical crystal just siting around woodie's house part... like we don't need more questions we need answers like who is lucy and how did she meet woodie and how did woodie gets the curse to begin with or who cursed woodie (we literally don't know anything about our lumberjack here ) 

I'm also curious about the official lore and hope we get any of it. But you never get ALL the answers and ALL the lore, and that is not a bad thing. For example, i don't know how Maxwell got the Codex. But i don't really care how he got it =) Unless there was some greater scheme involved, and he didn't get it by accident, then i would be curious too.
In any case, my Woodie is lunar, cuz he is obviously connected with moon, i just put more emphasis on that. But the official Woodie is not and probably will not be, unless they change it.

[iMester_GG]

hello again Mortalbane

12 hours ago, Mortalbane said:

That is a good question. To be fair, with the current system we are not choosing a side, we are just farming bosses as usual, and we spend skill points on the affinity perks only if we want to. It only creates the impression of choosing a side.

this is what i was trying to say earlier, the current system is so weird right now like it's just split at the end and that's it we don't know anything after.

and about choosing a side this was me trying to figure out what it's gonna be like in the far future because i m soooooo curious right now

12 hours ago, Mortalbane said:

That's why in another post i suggested introducing the affinity quests for Charlie and Wagstaff with those perks as rewards.

wow that's gonna be great if they did it because going all the way to defeat the "final boss of the game" just to unlock a perk that would be helpful before the final boss like what is the point ????? 

12 hours ago, Mortalbane said:

And no, players are not, and probably will not be separated into the Alliance and the Horde =) I wouldn't want that too, and that would be kinda meh and unfitting

yeah after i post my loooong comment i started to realise that would not work because the name and the goal of the game is to survive TOGETHER not split into 2 groups

12 hours ago, Mortalbane said:

But anyway, i'm curious about the game direction too. In this add-on we "pick a side", and then what? How will it affect the next add-on? Or are we going to get this Moon vs Shadow content forever?

to be honest i m 85% sure that they are gonna start adding the moon vs shadow thing for a looooong time because the just added a new type of damage and defence that effect the other side (like lunar weapons deal more damage to shadow enemies and vice versa ) so i think this would be the direction of the game until of course they announce something in the near future 

12 hours ago, Mortalbane said:

I'm also curious about the official lore and hope we get any of it. But you never get ALL the answers and ALL the lore, and that is not a bad thing. For example, i don't know how Maxwell got the Codex. But i don't really care how he got it =) Unless there was some greater scheme involved, and he didn't get it by accident, then i would be curious too.

ok you really know how to bring a good point here wow

but like i said *WE DON'T KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT WOODIE* at least maxwell had an accident and with that accident he found the codex but woodie on the other hand the only thing we know is that he is cursed and have an axe called lucy and woodie is affected by the full moon (LUNAR) and that it 

i almost forgot about walter animation and in the animation we just got 3 new points:

1 is that woodie is known in the real world and someone has spotted him in the woods that's why walter have a paper that says that there are a cursed beaver in that lives in the woods AKA woodie.

2 is the lucy is in the real world to soooo that's something.

3 that woodie probably have a similar story to wilson because he had a radio just like wilson had.

so my point here is with all that knowledge we still don't know crap about woodie not like maxwell that have the most lore between all the characters in DST and like you said we will never have all of our questions answered ( like how did maxwell got the codex) but in woodies case we need to know at least the basics like how did he get the curse and who is lucy and what did do to the moon to get that curse or what is the like between woodie and the beaver/moose/goose

(BTW i'm curious to about how did maxwell get the codex i think there is someone in the shadows with a bigger plan is using maxwell as a puppet )

12 hours ago, Mortalbane said:

In any case, my Woodie is lunar, cuz he is obviously connected with moon, i just put more emphasis on that. But the official Woodie is not and probably will not be, unless they change it.

yep woodie is officially a lunar guy!

but yeah the reality is that your woodie's version is probably not gonna be added in the game (for now at least) i think your woodie version will probably take some time to be tested and see if the other players are gonna like your version better or the current version better 

and klei have enough things to do for now so as usual we need to wait until the next update drop.

[Mortalbane]

1 hour ago, iMester_GG said:

hello again Mortalbane

Hello again.
Wow your comments are huge! And i like it! =)
So, we'll have to wait and see what Klei will say about Woodie, and where the add-on will take us.

I wonder what would you say about my other posts in the same topic. I've posted ideas for Wormwood, Wolfgang and WX, and also about shadow gear.
Or only Woodie sparks your interest?

[iMester_GG]

1 hour ago, Mortalbane said:

Hello again.
Wow your comments are huge! And i like it! =)
So, we'll have to wait and see what Klei will say about Woodie, and where the add-on will take us.

I wonder what would you say about my other posts in the same topic. I've posted ideas for Wormwood, Wolfgang and WX, and also about shadow gear.
Or only Woodie sparks your interest?

hello my friend :)

sorry this is gonna be a small comment (for now at least >:) ) 

and i like to see not only your ideas but all the community's idea but i'm new to this website so i don't know where to go to see every thing so i will try my best to see your lovely ideas as soon as possible 

btw(i don't get notifications if someone replies to me so that's why i take so long to answer because after i leave a comment i leave my phone for a while and then i realise that i need to check if someone replies to me or not)

[iMester_GG]

2 hours ago, Mortalbane said:

I wonder what would you say about my other posts in the same topic. I've posted ideas for Wormwood, Wolfgang and WX, and also about shadow gear.
Or only Woodie sparks your interest?

i think i need to give you a little back story about me (if you're interested of course)

the first time that i've seen the game is around 2014/2015 and as soon as my eyes saw the art style and the mechanics i've immediately start playing the game but the problem is i was only 11 years old and the amount of horror this game give me when i was 11 it was enough to keep me awake at night and because of that i dropped the game :(

fast forward 3 years later and i m now 14 years old and i just bought the game on my ps4 (which i'm still playing on it till this day ) and when i start playing the game (with my friend) we were so horrible at the game that we were scared from the tall bird and the pigs :)) so because i'm a bookworm and i really like to search and watching yt videos i immediately start liking the game and understand how this game work

(BTW this is the time that i started playingwith woodie because

1: all of my main characters that i chose in every game and i mean EVERY GAME !!!! are either a crazy guy or a cold blooded killer (like roadhog and reaper from overwatch 1 and 2 ) or (Krieg from the amazing game borderlands 2) and since woodie is a crazy and cursed guy that's why i chose him LOL ) 

2: we were 2 players and found the game hard so that's anothe reason whay i chose woodie because we needed a character that can do a lot of things at once (basically we needed a jack of all trades master of none)

so because of that me and my friend start progressing through the game so much that we have build our first base and start working on out farms but the fun ended there because on 86 day we got attacked but a lot and i mean A LOT of hounds from all the directions and they were ice hounds and fire hounds and they destroy not only our base but our hearts to 

so because of that we've stopped playing this game (but because i'm a bookworm that's like searching and watching yt videos i never stopped learning about this game until 2020 )

in that time i forgot about this game TBH but i was still watching beard 777 from time to time until i watched beard's video about a new wilson SKIL TREE ????????

i was so confused so i watched the hole video and the amount of nostalgia and excitement that i felt watching that video brought back the bookworm in me and start to learn everything that i've missed and boy there was a lot of things that i've missed so from time to time i started learning about what i've missed and all of the sudden i see another beard's video talking about not only a new skill tree (which i though only wilson can have a skill tree) but a new skill tree for woodie !!!! 

so because of that i decided to start playing this game with my same friend when this update drop (and because i'm 19 now and know how to survive because i watched a lot of yt videos LOL )

so basically why am i giving you my life story 

1: because you like long comments

2: i still don't know a lot of things about other characters and because everyone is talking about Wormwood and Wolfgang right now and i don't know anything about them so that why i need time to learn  these characters 

3:  the only time that we visited the caves because we what to build a bunny houses in the surface for food purposes so still we need time to look deep into the cave to learn more about these shadow creatures and the ancient things 

4: because i'm bored

so yeah i hope you enjoyed me mumbling about my noob life in this game 

and i don't have an opinion about basically everything in this huuuuuuuge game

the only thing that i have a decent opinion on is woodie:)

2 hours ago, Mortalbane said:

I wonder what would you say about my other posts in the same topic. I've posted ideas for Wormwood, Wolfgang and WX, and also about shadow gear.
Or only Woodie sparks your interest?

another thing that i forgot to mention is that i have spent 30 minutes trying to figure out what is your wx rework is about there is a lot of things that i don't understand about WX so because of that i didn't understand your rework man 

so i need to first: know everything about the character and second: try to understand your rework 

and that's gonna take hours (especially your rework man you really thought about everything in the main character and there skill trees man you really but love and effort in your reworks and that is dedication my guy keep it up and i hope one day klei reed one of your reworks <3 )

[Mortalbane]

6 hours ago, iMester_GG said:

i think i need to give you a little back story about me (if you're interested of course)

That is a familiar story.
I will reply to it in the messages. Cuz people come to this topic to read about Woodie rework, not to read our life stories (probably) =)