My Feedback On Beefalo Tree (it's underwhelming) & Re-design Suggestions.

[goatt]

The current beefalo trees are underwhelming, since before the skill tree, beefalo riding did not synergize with the Valkyrie warrior, and the new skill tree doesn't improve that.

4 types of beefalos, Ornery, Rider, Pudgy and Default. Pudgy and Default are usually less interesting to Wig, so I want to talk about Ornery and Rider and their synergy with the new skill trees.

I think the synergies are underwhelming.

1. we have a training speedup 15%. It's a standalone one-time feature. This feature isn't worth investing in if you want to train beefalo once per game. This is mainly useful to unlock other beefalo skills. Imagine when you want to change your skill trees after completing training beefalo, you cannot get rid of this useless point because it's just required to unlock other beefalo skills.

2. 30% extra riding time. Regular riding time is 13 min or 1.6 in-game days. That's more than enough and doesn't need extra in normal uses. This skill is also rather useless.

3. beefalo has 10 planar damage. This one is good. But it essentially costs 3 skill points to unlock. Plus there aren't other synergetic incentives to get it. So it's just a good standalone feature that's expensive to unlock, which, in my opinion, is still underwhelming for the investment.

4. The new saddle. It makes the beefalo more tanky but at the cost of speed. Speed directly affects damage evasion, especially in boss fights. So the new saddle makes the beefalo more prone to damage while giving him a little bit of protection (66% more effective health, not much). In my opinion, the new saddle is just counter-productive at helping beefalo become more tanky.

 

I understand each skill point should only have minor improvement. But the improvement should be synergetic to the character, or should be what the character naturally want. Beefalo was never a Wigfrid thing. In addition, the beefalo tree by itself is also underwhelming.

 

My re-design suggestion that focuses on synergy.

 

Skill 1 solve Ornery beefalo's riding problem.

Veteran riders know that you must feed Ornery beefalo something in order to ride it. Skill tree can have a minor QoL improvement on that, allowing the Valkyrie Warrior to naturally ride Warrior beefalo without feeding. It's their spiritual connection that draws them closer.

Skill 1 also allows Ornery beefalo to benefit from battle songs.

Skill 2 allows the warriors to share their defense. Ornery beefalo inherits Wigfrid's innate 25% damage reduction. If skill Mystic Resistence is learned, beefalo inherits that +5 planar defense too.

Skill 3 allows the warriors to share their attack talent. Ornergy beefalo inherits Wigfrid's innate 25% bonus damage.

Skill 4 allows the warriors to share their talent of regenerating health from attacking. Beefalo regenerates health the same amount as normal Wigrid HP atk regen + sanity Regen. (In the current game, beefalo attack will let rider Wig regain both health and sanity. My suggestion doesn't remove that, but add beefalo regen on top of that).

Skill 5 allows the warriors to share speed bonus of equipped items. Beefalo inherits 50% of the original speed bonus of all the items equipped by Wigfrid rider. (the number can be tuned down for balancing). The speed bonus only applies to base speed (8), not multiplicatively.

Skill 6 solve Beefalo death problem.

Wigfrid can craft an upgraded beefalo bell, which protect the soul of linked beefalo after death. The soul can be released onto a wild beefalo to resurrect the heroic beefalo spirit. The new beefalo accepting the soul would still be wild but 90% domesticated. And its tendency is locked in Ornery no matter how you train it. (resurrected domestication percentage can be tuned)

Skill Saddle? I don't think such saddle is needed. Make instead make a spiritual saddle that allow beefalo to benefit from Wigfrid's equipped item's armor and speed bonus. The spiritual saddle itself doesn't have stats. It just uses Wigfrid's equipment. But this skill saddle will replace Skill 5, because they serve essentially the same thing.

Bonus synergy final alignment allows Wigfrid to convert her extra 25% physical damage into planar damage. Her 25% extra damage will be innately superior. This conversion can also be inherited by beefalo in beefalo skill 3. Of course, this is in addition to alignment bonus damage.

Unspoken Benefit I intentionally only mentioned Ornery, because this will give creative space to other characters to buff different types of beefalo in the future. In my understanding, the Valkyrie Warrior is only bonded with Ornery beefalo. It would be odd if she bonds with any other types of beefalo. Beefalo, as a big category, should be a Wigfrid thing.

 

What's your feeling about the current beefalo tree?

[Jakepeng99]

3 minutes ago, goatt said:

we have a training speedup 15%. It's a standalone one-time feature. This feature isn't worth investing in if you want to train beefalo once per game. This is mainly useful to unlock other beefalo skills. Imagine when you want to change your skill trees after completing training beefalo, you cannot get rid of this useless point because it's just required to unlock other beefalo skills.

 

3 minutes ago, goatt said:

Skill 1 solve Ornery beefalo's riding problem.

Veteran riders know that you must feed Ornery beefalo something in order to ride it. Skill tree can have a minor QoL improvement on that, allowing the Valkyrie Warrior to naturally ride Warrior beefalo without feeding. It's their spiritual connection that draws them closer.

Imo make her beefalo lose obedience slower. It makes taming beefalo easier, and it still helps ornery without removing the downside of the ornery beef. It would be a quick but effective thing.

3 minutes ago, goatt said:

Skill 6 solve Beefalo death problem.

Wigfrid can craft an upgraded beefalo bell, which protect the soul of linked beefalo after death. The soul can be released onto a wild beefalo to resurrect the heroic beefalo spirit. The new beefalo accepting the soul would still be wild but 90% domesticated. And its tendency is locked in Ornery no matter how you train it. (resurrected domestication percentage can be tuned)

Dont lock that behind Wigfrid is all i got to say.

 

A beefalo meat effigy would be the best form of this since it is stationary resurection and would allow you to attune your beefalo to it. 

4 minutes ago, goatt said:

Skill 1 also allows Ornery beefalo to benefit from battle songs.

This should probably not be a skill, since beefalos are technically followers so it would make sense if they were buffed by it without skills.

6 minutes ago, goatt said:

Skill 4 allows the warriors to share their talent of regenerating health from attacking. Beefalo regenerates health the same amount as normal Wigrid HP atk regen + sanity Regen. (In the current game, beefalo attack will let rider Wig regain both health and sanity. My suggestion doesn't remove that, but add beefalo regen on top of that).

Can work well.

[goatt]

7 minutes ago, Jakepeng99 said:

Dont lock that behind Wigfrid is all i got to say.

I agree. But for Wigfrid, she should at least be able to resurrect a warrior's soul, if she can mass resurrect non-warriors' soul by singing, lmao.

I'm not against a general approach either. 

 

8 minutes ago, Jakepeng99 said:

Imo make her beefalo lose obedience slower.

fandom wiki contains some wrong information. It says beefalo loses obedience at rate of 1% per min. That's true only when beefalo is not hungry. Most domesticated beefalos are hungry. A grass only keeps a beefalo fed for less than 10 seconds, then it loses 10% obedience in less than a min.

The game needs to slow down hungry beefalos' obedience decay by more than x10 in order for it to be a QoL.

I agree your suggestion can theoretically work, but I think beefalo's hunger's influence on obedience is the issue here, not the natural obedience decay.

I think simply allowing Wig to ride ornery is a better solution to my personal taste.

 

 

[Swiyss]

Some things here are just way too overtuned. Imagine leveling up all 6 skills... you would a beast of a beefalo, its way too op xd. I think making domestication run down slower is a good thing, and I think the added 10 planar damage is good enough, dealing 78 damage with a fully tamed beefalo is already good on its own.

Yeah some current ones are a bit underwhelming but what you suggested is way too much in my opinion.

[Gashzer]

I like how you are working the problem instead of non-constructive complaining that wigfrid shouldnt have beefalo skills to start with.

Hopefully klei takes some of your ideas on board.

[Swiyss]

2 minutes ago, goatt said:

I agree. But for Wigfrid, she should at least be able to resurrect a warrior's soul, if she can mass resurrect non-warriors' soul by singing, lmao.

I'm not against a general approach either. 

 

fandom wiki contains some wrong information. It says beefalo loses obedience at rate of 1% per min. That's true only when beefalo is not hungry. Most domesticated beefalos are hungry. A grass only keeps a beefalo fed for less than 10 seconds, then it loses 10% obedience in less than a min.

The game needs to slow down hungry beefalos' obedience decay by more than x10 in order for it to be a QoL.

I agree your suggestion can theoretically work, but I think beefalo's hunger's influence on obedience is the issue here, not the natural obedience decay.

I think simply allowing Wig to ride ornery is a better solution to my personal taste.

 

 

They need to either change beefalos mehanics for everyone or make the mistake of overbuffing the skilltree. And none is good if done incorrectly.

[Masked Koopa]

I think it'd be good if wigfrid was able to share more of her beefalo benefits with nearby players. One of wigfrid's best traits has always been her abilty to share her traits with other players without being a swap character, and it'd be nice if her skill tree could continue this trend.