Bernie Tree should be this:

[Swiyss]

6 minutes ago, Shosuko said:

Bernie will never be killing bosses

it currently works.

[Bronzebot]

I think a good replacement for the 'Hot Headed' skill could be a skill that allows small Bernie to follow Willow (1 Bernie maximum) whenever she's above the sanity threshold to collect & bring nearby embers as well as fire-related drops like ashes, charcoal and possibly fire-cooked foods (akin to Wormwood's carrats in a sense).
Not only would it be great for reducing the amount of ember-vacuuming Willow has to do, but it would also make the 'Accelerant' skills (Bernie movement speed) more favorable picks.

[arubaro]

i dont like the idea of healing him with embers. You can heal him with sewing kits and embers has nothing to do with a teddy bear :/

 

what about improving his taunt perk? is his main thing, attracting enemies

[Swiyss]

5 minutes ago, Bronzebot said:

I think a good replacement for the 'Hot Headed' skill could be a skill that allows small Bernie to follow Willow (1 Bernie maximum) whenever she's above the sanity threshold to collect & bring nearby embers as well as fire-related drops like ashes, charcoal and possibly fire-cooked foods (akin to Wormwood's carrats in a sense).
Not only would it be great for reducing the amount of ember-vacuuming Willow has to do, but it would also make the 'Accelerant' skills (Bernie movement speed) more favorable picks.

that is a very good idea, I think it would have to cost a lot actually

[Yuuko]

11 hours ago, Swiyss said:

it currently works.

Debatable.  Try running him through all bosses and tell me which ones it works on b/c I think you'll come up pretty short compared to my list of bosses I can fight with near zero interaction otherwise.

[Yuuko]

Okay here is where I'm sitting with Bernie tree atm

Again - I think Bernie tree needs something more.  Right now most of it is just stats.  While stats are powerful, they are not interesting.  There is only *1* skill in the Bernie tree that is actually something you do, and its so expensive that you must give up a significant amount of Lighter tree skills to get it...  The Bernie tree needs to be better.

A major issue with investing in Bernie is his own weaknesses.  You must raise and lower your sanity to get him out and put him away, you cannot heal him while he is large, and if you get too far away from him (teleport, use wormhole, etc) he does not go with you.

Also there is only 1 active skill, and really we need more options then that.

Here is what I propose for Bernie's new skill tree

The first 3 skills all get a 3rd level skill.

Health 1 => Health 2 => Healing Flame: Willow can spend an ember to heal Bernie 20%

Sanity 1 => Sanity 2 => Warm Embrace: Willow can pick up Bernie returning him to an item in her inventory at any time

Speed 1 => Speed 2 => Flames of War: Casting Burning Frenzy effects Bernie as well as Willow, increasing his damage +25%

Hot Headed: Requires 6 Bernie skills.  Bernie will grow and fight when near shadow monsters regardless of Willow's sanity.

Burning Bernie: Requires Hot Headed.  Ignite Bernie, same as the skill currently works.

Affinity skills => If you have Hot Headed Bernie will grow and fight opposed alignment monsters.

This smooths out your access to Bernie - if you're going to invest a lot of points into him, you really NEED to be able to use him as a primary play element.  Gaining more control over Bernie with Warm Embrace and Hot Headed don't take away the sanity play style, but ensure when the game forces certain sanity states on you that you are not robbed of your primary investment.  Flames of War adds another active option for an aggressive Bernie.  Rather than just Burning Bernie where you light him up and watch, or neglecting him because you don't want to invest so much that you lose your strongest fire spells, we can now play WITH Bernie.

Also putting something special at the end of each of the first trees means even if a player specs heavy into fire they still have an interesting choice to make on the Bernie side.

[arubaro]

1 hour ago, Shosuko said:

you cannot heal him while he is large

never tried but seems like a weird design choice to dont allow players to sewing him while is big like how you can apply glands on everything

i would like that added if isnt the case so you dont have to wait when is broken/death to repair him

[KvltBear]

22 hours ago, Jakepeng99 said:

Ides for a replacement skill (not my idea it was Saladmanders):

Bernie drops stuffings occasionally when on low hp which you can use to heal or repair bernie. They dissapear like ash, and picking them up automatically heals bernie without the need to give it to him.

Ohhh I like this. Much better and more fun than a weak passive regen.

OP I agree in general with your post. Less stat changes and more mechanics is the path to fun. The same way getting meat via hunts is more fun to me than meat farms.

They're gonna have to buff his tree or else most will try it once or twice and decide it's not worth the hassle. Because ultimately he is a hassle to manage. He definitely needed buffs but you only get one perk that really addresses how difficult he is to control and even then it's just adequate enough to fight something besides nightmare creatures. My biggest issue the few times I tried old Willow was "turning off" bernie seemed very difficult, especially early on, and often I just had to let him go to 0 health and carry him around until I could make a sewing kit. Using sanity as his activation is interesting but not particularly viable when you can just pick lighter perks instead.

[Yuuko]

3 hours ago, KvltBear said:

Ohhh I like this. Much better and more fun than a weak passive regen.

OP I agree in general with your post. Less stat changes and more mechanics is the path to fun. The same way getting meat via hunts is more fun to me than meat farms.

They're gonna have to buff his tree or else most will try it once or twice and decide it's not worth the hassle. Because ultimately he is a hassle to manage. He definitely needed buffs but you only get one perk that really addresses how difficult he is to control and even then it's just adequate enough to fight something besides nightmare creatures. My biggest issue the few times I tried old Willow was "turning off" bernie seemed very difficult, especially early on, and often I just had to let him go to 0 health and carry him around until I could make a sewing kit. Using sanity as his activation is interesting but not particularly viable when you can just pick lighter perks instead.

The only thing I don't like about Saladmander's suggestion is that it is too active.  Bernie is not a primary source of damage, so if you are spending time chasing these things you're just losing damage.  Healing a tank instead of dealing damage is a bad loop that just extends game play.  Besides for most fights Bernie won't need healing, but in a pinch we might realize we need to heal him - and such an effect would give too low a healing to be impactful, or too high and always top Bernie off.  Rather I think we need a way to burst heal Bernie, rather than slowly passively heal him.  Bernie is not the main character, he is the support animate.  Willow should not be supporting Bernie imo.

But yeah we do need something for it and that is a suggestion.  I still think embers are the best way to go because that is the same cost Willow uses for other effects, meaning she has to pick between healing burning and possibly casting a spell.  It also means no new assets need to be added.  It can burst heal Bernie when we need it, at this cost, but if we don't need it then we use embers for other things.  Its more for burst healing in the moment, you would probably pick up and sew bernie most of the time.

Picking up Bernie is imo - a very important need in order to feel good investing this much into a Bernie tree.  You're giving up really cool fire spells for a good bernie, you need to control him better.  Not just picking him up, but lunacy disables him completely and situations like AFW where you need to effect your sanity during the fight - if we're going to invest deep into the Bernie tree we need to answer these problems.  Otherwise its just a trap tree that pulls away all benefit when you need it.

[Jakepeng99]

9 hours ago, Shosuko said:

The only thing I don't like about Saladmander's suggestion is that it is too active. 

Use a lazy forager, or have teamups to help.

[Yuuko]

28 minutes ago, Jakepeng99 said:

Use a lazy forager, or have teamups to help.

Or... why waste time playing a mini game to heal the tank instead of just doing damage to finish the fight?

imo its bad - as I've said before - like refueling the lighter from flame.  If the lighter refuels from fire, then you just light fire and suck it back up to refuel the torch.  Its a bad pattern because its too self contained.  If it fuels good then you basically have infinite fuel.  If it fuels bad then you're wasting your fuel trying.

If Bernie takes damage and then you get a mini game to heal him - either the healing is OP and Bernie basically has infinite health b/c you can just heal him whenever he takes damage - or its so bad that you should just never do it.  Its just the wrong play pattern.

[Wonz]

Anyone even finds speed useful?

[grm9]

5 hours ago, Shosuko said:

Or... why waste time playing a mini game to heal the tank instead of just doing damage to finish the fight?

imo its bad - as I've said before - like refueling the lighter from flame.  If the lighter refuels from fire, then you just light fire and suck it back up to refuel the torch.  Its a bad pattern because its too self contained.  If it fuels good then you basically have infinite fuel.  If it fuels bad then you're wasting your fuel trying.

If Bernie takes damage and then you get a mini game to heal him - either the healing is OP and Bernie basically has infinite health b/c you can just heal him whenever he takes damage - or its so bad that you should just never do it.  Its just the wrong play pattern.

what's wrong with my suggestion about how to implement bernie healing 

On 12/2/2023 at 8:49 PM, grm9 said:

could make it require applying them to bernie directly with a 2-3 seconds long animation of crafting near him, so you need to do it at the right time to not get hit by AoE of the boss that's attacking bernie, possibly creating a small fire blast after a repair to compensate the time spent repairing instead of casting spells and waiting for him to die and get replaced by a second one, also could limit the number of total dropped stuffings that would only reset after you sew bernie

 

[Mysterious box]

2 hours ago, Wonz said:

Anyone even finds speed useful?

No I somehow still manage to leave Bernie behind.

[Swiyss]

On 12/3/2023 at 9:35 AM, Shosuko said:

Okay here is where I'm sitting with Bernie tree atm

Again - I think Bernie tree needs something more.  Right now most of it is just stats.  While stats are powerful, they are not interesting.  There is only *1* skill in the Bernie tree that is actually something you do, and its so expensive that you must give up a significant amount of Lighter tree skills to get it...  The Bernie tree needs to be better.

A major issue with investing in Bernie is his own weaknesses.  You must raise and lower your sanity to get him out and put him away, you cannot heal him while he is large, and if you get too far away from him (teleport, use wormhole, etc) he does not go with you.

Also there is only 1 active skill, and really we need more options then that.

Here is what I propose for Bernie's new skill tree

The first 3 skills all get a 3rd level skill.

Health 1 => Health 2 => Healing Flame: Willow can spend an ember to heal Bernie 20%

Sanity 1 => Sanity 2 => Warm Embrace: Willow can pick up Bernie returning him to an item in her inventory at any time

Speed 1 => Speed 2 => Flames of War: Casting Burning Frenzy effects Bernie as well as Willow, increasing his damage +25%

Hot Headed: Requires 6 Bernie skills.  Bernie will grow and fight when near shadow monsters regardless of Willow's sanity.

Burning Bernie: Requires Hot Headed.  Ignite Bernie, same as the skill currently works.

Affinity skills => If you have Hot Headed Bernie will grow and fight opposed alignment monsters.

This smooths out your access to Bernie - if you're going to invest a lot of points into him, you really NEED to be able to use him as a primary play element.  Gaining more control over Bernie with Warm Embrace and Hot Headed don't take away the sanity play style, but ensure when the game forces certain sanity states on you that you are not robbed of your primary investment.  Flames of War adds another active option for an aggressive Bernie.  Rather than just Burning Bernie where you light him up and watch, or neglecting him because you don't want to invest so much that you lose your strongest fire spells, we can now play WITH Bernie.

Also putting something special at the end of each of the first trees means even if a player specs heavy into fire they still have an interesting choice to make on the Bernie side.

What's you opinion on this? :

 

 

7 hours ago, Shosuko said:

Or... why waste time playing a mini game to heal the tank instead of just doing damage to finish the fight?

Because it's an alternative gameplay, it makes Willow have more creativity rather then being able to do only 1 thing.

[Yuuko]

5 hours ago, Wonz said:

Anyone even finds speed useful?

I do find it useful BUT not in combat of course.  Its useful if you're walking on a cane + road or riding a beefalo a lot b/c Bernie can keep up with you then, but I think a better solution is to let Willow pick up Bernie and just go.

2 hours ago, Swiyss said:

What's you opinion on this? :

 

 

Because it's an alternative gameplay, it makes Willow have more creativity rather then being able to do only 1 thing.

I think the stuffing minigame is entirely the wrong way to go.  Keeping Bernie alive shouldn't be a chore for Willow to do.  Willow is the main character, and the dps.  Plus Bernie has like, a lot of health.  He shouldn't need healing all the time to make this a major focus.  Mostly its a self contained loop though, like using your lighter to burn something to absorb to refuel your lighter.  It doesn't provoke any interaction.  Its just Bernie takes damage => in response Bernie ejects healing materials => Heal Bernie.

It suffers from the same balance issue as the lighter too - if the stuffing coming out is as valuable or more than health he lost then he basically has infinite health.  If its not (which is shouldn't be) then you just wouldn't do it b/c healing is only slowing down how quickly he dies while you should just be doing damage to end the encounter, or dropping another Bernie and sewing the dead one to 100 after he falls.  Especially if you're dealing with swarms of enemies - the most likely case where you'd need to heal Bernie - you're probably dealing with a lot of loot on the ground so chasing stuffing would also be unwieldy.

Having an ember cost to heal Bernie means you are probably choosing between casting a damage spell or fixing Bernie.  At 20% heal per ember that is 5 embers to full heal Bernie, which is kinda a lot - same cost as her highest damage spells.  This makes it costly to heal Bernie with embers, but not time consuming in that moment.  Willow would have an interesting choice of how to spend her valuable resources, healing Bernie or casting a spell. 

I get that people think its not as thematic but really, if not healing with embers they should just enable you to use a sewing kit to 100% his health while he's out OR add in the skill as I mentioned to pick up Bernie when he's big so you can sew him in your inventory.  I think the embers are fine as a spell, warmth is associated with healing and Bernie is magicked alive via Willow who's power is (now) derived from embers.  It makes since to me that Willow gave Bernie a spark of life, and that spark is a fire like all of her other magic, and she could revitalize it with more flames.

The stuffing minigames comes with the other side effect of asking for more assets.  Embers are in the game, already part of Willow's cost based magic system, so using embers to heal Bernie fits in mechanically without adding any new asks.  If we want particles for fluff, and sprites for stuffing, then we're asking Klei to add art assets - and a whole other material for players to juggle amongst what is already there.

I can post on your thread thoughts on your OP if you want, but I think the lighter tab is mostly good as is.  The Bernie tab is the only part I think needs work, and what I've put here is essentially what I think it needs.  3 tier one options that each give a more valuable level 3 perk that actually effects how you play with Bernie, and a top tier chain that increases his active and retaliate damage at a point threshold that requires you sacrifice points from the lighter page to get it - so you are choosing to be more fire mage, or more Bernie wrangler.

[Swiyss]

4 minutes ago, Shosuko said:

I do find it useful BUT not in combat of course.  Its useful if you're walking on a cane + road or riding a beefalo a lot b/c Bernie can keep up with you then, but I think a better solution is to let Willow pick up Bernie and just go.

I think the stuffing minigame is entirely the wrong way to go.  Keeping Bernie alive shouldn't be a chore for Willow to do.  Willow is the main character, and the dps.  Plus Bernie has like, a lot of health.  He shouldn't need healing all the time to make this a major focus.  Mostly its a self contained loop though, like using your lighter to burn something to absorb to refuel your lighter.  It doesn't provoke any interaction.  Its just Bernie takes damage => in response Bernie ejects healing materials => Heal Bernie.

It suffers from the same balance issue as the lighter too - if the stuffing coming out is as valuable or more than health he lost then he basically has infinite health.  If its not (which is shouldn't be) then you just wouldn't do it b/c healing is only slowing down how quickly he dies while you're not doing damage to actually end the encounter...

Having an ember cost to heal Bernie means you are probably choosing between casting a damage spell or fixing Bernie.  At 20% heal per ember that is 5 embers to full heal Bernie, which is kinda a lot - same cost as her highest damage spells.  This makes it costly to heal Bernie with embers, but not time consuming.  Willow would have an interesting choice of how to spend her valuable resources, healing Bernie or casting a spell.  Especially if you're dealing with swarms of enemies - the most likely case where you'd need to heal Bernie - you're probably dealing with a lot of loot on the ground so chasing stuffing would also be unwieldy.

I get that people think its not as thematic but really, if not healing with embers they should just enable you to use a sewing kit to 100% his health while he's out OR add in the skill as I mentioned to pick up Bernie when he's big so you can sew him in your inventory.  I think the embers are fine as a spell, warmth is associated with healing and Bernie is magicked alive via Willow who's power is (now) derived from embers.  It makes since to me that Willow gave Bernie a spark of life, and that spark is a fire like all of her other magic, and she could revitalize it with more flames.

The stuffing minigames comes with the other side effect of asking for more assets.  Embers are in the game, already part of Willow's cost based magic system, so using embers to heal Bernie fits in mechanically without adding any new asks.  If we want particles for fluff, and sprites for stuffing, then we're asking Klei to add art assets - and a whole other material for players to juggle amongst what is already there.

I can post on your thread thoughts on your OP if you want, but I think the lighter tab is mostly good as is.  The Bernie tab is the only part I think needs work, and what I've put here is essentially what I think it needs.  3 tier one options that each give a more valuable level 3 perk that actually effects how you play with Bernie, and a top tier chain that increases his active and retaliate damage at a point threshold that requires you sacrifice points from the lighter page to get it - so you are choosing to be more fire mage, or more Bernie wrangler.

my idea was only that

if you interact with him, he survives longer

if you don't, he dies quicker

and make him do almost character damage IF he's on-fire, being buffed constantly AND has the right affinity against certain target.

then people would be able to not interact with certain fighting scenarios, making it great for casual players, but if you let him completely he'll just lose health quicker than ever, similar to shadow duelists idea.

then again, if they implemented all of that stuff on him, why not go all out then? if we're gonna make her maxwell no2 then just buff him a bit you know.

yeah the stuffing idea works only as an idea, not practically, most of what you stated here though is exactly what I have in mind for him too...

[haroNIK]

On 02.12.2023 at 22:16, Shosuko said:

В теории это звучит забавно, но я думаю, что у него есть два недостатка, которые делают его плохим на практике.

1) получить урон, чтобы исцелиться. Слишком простой и самоподпитывающийся цикл. Точно так же, как зажигалки зажигаются, которые вы затем поглощаете для дозаправки. Его невозможно сбалансировать таким образом, потому что если он слишком хорош, то он слишком хорош, и у него просто бесконечное здоровье. Если все плохо, то это не лечит его достаточно хорошо, и потребность в исцелении Берни остается неудовлетворенной.

2) Берни остается вне игры - я думаю важно, что вам нужно убрать Берни с игрового поля, чтобы восстановить его.

Пассивное лечение работает не очень хорошо. Он очень низкий, и независимо от того, настроен ли он с ошибками или намеренно - в настоящее время я не думаю, что он лечится вне боя.

Горячая голова на самом деле вредна. На самом деле все это позволяет Берни ударить Гломмера. В остальном все это просто мягкие пассивы. На самом деле нет смысла покупать большинство из них. Несколько максимального здоровья? Реген, который не работает вне боя? Разница между здравомыслием 1 и здравомыслием 2 составляет всего около 10 очков здравомыслия. Ничто из этого не похоже на реальные вещи, которые вы хотите взять, скорее просто места, где можно поставить точки, чтобы либо получить выравнивание Берни, либо потому, что вы купили буквально все существующие навыки стрельбы и ДОЛЖНЫ купить некоторые навыки Берни.

Я думаю, что сторона дерева Берни в настоящее время совершенно неудовлетворительна, ЗА ИСКЛЮЧЕНИЕМ Горящего Берни, который можно взять, только если вы откажетесь от самых сильных заклинаний огня.

Вам как бы нужно иметь и то, и другое, потому что вы получаете 15 очков, а включая близость, вы можете потратить только 11 очков либо на огонь, либо на Берни. В другом дереве у вас всегда будет как минимум 4 точки. Поэтому нет причин не иметь синергии между деревьями. Но также вам действительно нужны более эффективные навыки Берни, которые сделают выбор вложений в Берни более целесообразным, чем просто «Сжигание Берни» - который на данный момент является единственным навыком, который действительно имеет значение. Все остальное — скучные пассивные статы (или горячая голова, которая на самом деле является просто навыком тролля).

with the second level of sanity, you can summon big Bernie with 60 sanity, but even in this case, Bernie aggroes at the nightmares, which seems like a bug, because at half sanity the nightmares are neutral and just run around showing themselves, but Bernie somehow aggroes at them and it is better to remove this so that he does not aggro on neutral mobs for Willow

[Yuuko]

18 minutes ago, haroNIK said:

with the second level of sanity, you can summon big Bernie with 60 sanity, but even in this case, Bernie aggroes at the nightmares, which seems like a bug, because at half sanity the nightmares are neutral and just run around showing themselves, but Bernie somehow aggroes at them and it is better to remove this so that he does not aggro on neutral mobs for Willow

I think the best solution to this is the perk I suggest that allows you to just pick up Bernie at any time.  We've talked about this before, I do not believe it is a bug.  Bernie fights shadows automatically - not just when they aggro Willow.  This is not a bug because he also protects other players from shadows which are not aggro on Willow too.  I don't think we need to change this - just give us control to pick up Bernie when we don't want him out anyway.

[Swiyss]

9 minutes ago, Shosuko said:

I think the best solution to this is the perk I suggest that allows you to just pick up Bernie at any time.  We've talked about this before, I do not believe it is a bug.  Bernie fights shadows automatically - not just when they aggro Willow.  This is not a bug because he also protects other players from shadows which are not aggro on Willow too.  I don't think we need to change this - just give us control to pick up Bernie when we don't want him out anyway.

Big Ups!! We need more ways to control Bearnie!

[haroNIK]

1 hour ago, Shosuko said:

Я думаю, что лучшим решением этой проблемы является предлагаемый мной перк, который позволит вам просто забрать Берни в любое время. Мы уже говорили об этом раньше, я не считаю, что это ошибка. Берни сражается с тенями автоматически, а не только тогда, когда они раздражают Уиллоу. Это не ошибка, потому что он также защищает других игроков от теней, которые не агрессивны и для Уиллоу. Я не думаю, что нам нужно это менять - просто дайте нам возможность забрать Берни, когда мы все равно не хотим, чтобы он уходил.

in any case, mistake, you will summon Bernie at 60 sanity, and he will not only fight with your problems but also with nightmares that don’t even bother anyone