A more enjoyable Wigfrid's Beefalo Rider skill branch

[Picklesaurus]

I'll start by saying It fascinated me when I spent my first skill point on the first Beefalo skill and I noticed that the music changed while I was mounted, it was such a cool detail, although the music loop is short, I really felt like a valkyrie charging into battle in her epic mount! So I wanted to see where things would go and I kept leveling up the Beefalo skill branch and in the end I was left disapointed with most of the things I unlocked.

Why I felt disappointed: There is a lack of noticeable bonuses that are kept after taming the Beefalo, there is no special interaction between wigfrid and her new saddle craft and the Battle saddle doesn't have a situation in which you would prefer to use it over the other Saddle options. In the end you look at this skill branch with your tamed Beefalo and you are left with the question: Are 4 skill points worth it for wigfrid to give her tamed  Beefalo +10 planar damage and craft a questionable Saddle? 

So here are some change ideas:
 

Noble Mount I: 15% faster domestication   25% faster domestication. 
 

Noble Mount II: +30% Beefalo ride time   Improved Beefalo tendencies.

(Pudgy -> 120 winter insulation , Rider  -> Improved item pickup time while mounted, Default -> 120 summer insulation, Ornery -> Always allow Wigfrid to ride it) 


Noble Mount III: +10 Beefalo planar damage  +10 Beefalo planar damage +10% Beefalo riding speed while outside of combat.


Battle Saddle: Learn to craft the Battle Saddle
          \/                          
Battle Cattle:  Learn to craft the Battle Saddle. (Battle Saddle change: +20% riding speed while in combat)
                        Wigfrid can use her equiped weapon's special ability while riding a Beefalo.


One last thing:
It would be awesome if Wigfrid would make an angry face while riding just like the Beefalo does instead of the silly face she currently makes. 

                        

[Gashzer]

Faster domestication would be nice. However I like the 30% boost to ride time because it helps alot during the early days of beefalo taming so i want that to stay.

Noble mount 3 could be upgraded to +16 planar damage. Making a regular beefalo do 50 damage is an important damage threshold.

Battle saddle is great as is. Allows you to remount beefalo even if its in combat and you can do a good bit of tanking now.

Killed dfly recently using a combo of unmounted tanking with shield then jumping on beefalo to fight after health got low to regen up with heart song after beefalo got hurt too much i unmounted again with full hp to tank to victory. Its really nice not needing to kite. Its a niche strategy but its fun and effective.

Shield is a ridiculously good armour/weapon. Its so cheap to mass produce.

[Swiyss]

2 hours ago, Picklesaurus said:

I'll start by saying It fascinated me when I spent my first skill point on the first Beefalo skill and I noticed that the music changed while I was mounted, it was such a cool detail, although the music loop is short, I really felt like a valkyrie charging into battle in her epic mount! So I wanted to see where things would go and I kept leveling up the Beefalo skill branch and in the end I was left disapointed with most of the things I unlocked.

Why I felt disappointed: There is a lack of noticeable bonuses that are kept after taming the Beefalo, there is no special interaction between wigfrid and her new saddle craft and the Battle saddle doesn't have a situation in which you would prefer to use it over the other Saddle options. In the end you look at this skill branch with you tamed Beefalo and you are left with the question: Are 4 skill points worth it for wigfrid to give her tamed  Beefalo +10 planar damage and craft a questionable Saddle? 

So here are some change ideas:
 

Noble Mount I: 15% faster domestication   25% faster domestication. 
 

Noble Mount II: +30% Beefalo ride time   Improved Beefalo tendencies.

(Pudgy -> 120 winter insulation , Rider  -> Improved item pickup time while mounted, Default -> 120 summer insulation, Ornery -> +5% obedience) 


Noble Mount III: +10 Beefalo planar damage  +10 Beefalo planar damage +10% Beefalo riding speed while outside of combat.


Battle Saddle: Learn to craft the Battle Saddle
          \/                          
Battle Cattle:  Learn to craft the Battle Saddle. (Battle Saddle change: +20% riding speed while in combat)
                        Wigfrid can use her equiped weapon's special ability while riding a Beefalo.


One last thing:
It would be awesome if Wigfrid would make an angry face while riding just like the Beefalo does instead of the silly face she currently makes. 

                        

amazing ideas. I think all of them could be implemented and would make riding beefalos way better with her, However I still think we need some kinda of interaction between her damage and the riding of the beefalos

[xhyom]

I find it a bit strange how much Klei avoided going into this Beefalo rider idea too much, could it be that they were afraid that players wouldn't like it or wouldn't understand why she had some focus on mounts? Because for me they could exaggerate much more in the numbers and interactions with the beefalos, taking into account that for Wigfrid to ride a beefalo she is basically throwing away ALL her other benefits and advantages I think it would hardly be a big problem balance wise, even her innate healing/sanity and her armor is useless when riding a beefalo.

[Mysterious box]

2 hours ago, xhyom said:

I find it a bit strange how much Klei avoided going into this Beefalo rider idea too much, could it be that they were afraid that players wouldn't like it or wouldn't understand why she had some focus on mounts? Because for me they could exaggerate much more in the numbers and interactions with the beefalos, taking into account that for Wigfrid to ride a beefalo she is basically throwing away ALL her other benefits and advantages I think it would hardly be a big problem balance wise, even her innate healing/sanity and her armor is useless when riding a beefalo.

I think Walter made them wary tbh but if that really is the case they shouldn't have done it or gone all the way regardless.

[july401]

Am I the only guy thinking the Mounting skills be more suitable for Wendy instead of Wigfrid?

Why her? Why not her?

[Mysterious box]

4 minutes ago, july401 said:

Am I the only guy thinking the Mounting skills be more suitable for Wendy instead of Wigfrid?

Why her? Why not her?

Why Wendy she has no relation to being a rider Walter would have made the most sense with his friendly to animals nature and already being a mount character but Wigfrid is definitely the second most logical choice.

[maxwell_winters]

2 minutes ago, Mysterious box said:

Walter would have made the most sense with his friendly to animals nature and already being a mount character

I think it would've suited Walter if Woby didn't exist. If they added to Walter, Woby would just seem pointless.He'll probably have a dedicated Woby branch.

[Mysterious box]

Just now, maxwell_winters said:

I think it would've suited Walter if Woby didn't exist. If they added to Walter, Woby would just seem pointless.He'll probably have a dedicated Woby branch.

I know there will be a Woby branch after the Bernie branch it just wouldn't make sense for there not to be a Woby branch but I still very much doubt Klei can make Woby more desirable to Walter than a beefalo short of removing his sanity downside (which looking at Woodie and Willow and the state of skill trees is very much on the table) or Doing something that goes against the lore of Woby which again is very much possible given our current direction.

[ShadowDuelist]

Can Wigfrid’s combat healing song affect Ridden beefalos please?

Also she could definitely use other new synergies, such as being able to block some attacks while riding.

[NotGabriel]

I would become a Wigfrid main the tendency suggestion alone, I’d be saving a fortune in twigs!

I agree the rider tree needs more. Klei wants us to see Wigfrid as a Beefalo lover so bad but she still just doesn’t jive well with them. Also, I love the idea of being able to use weapon special abilities on them seeing as she has two special weapons IN this tree that would both be really useful and funny on a beefalo

[shaurun]

I'd like Wigfrid to be able to turn tamed beefalo into pegasus.

[Antynomity]

12 hours ago, Gashzer said:

Noble mount 3 could be upgraded to +16 planar damage. Making a regular beefalo do 50 damage is an important damage threshold.

This game is done-for.

[Gashzer]

24 minutes ago, Antynomity said:

This game is done-for.

Haha why is that? 

Making a regular untamed beefalo competitive with wigfrids own starting weapon is a good buff. The problem right now with her beefalo skills is a beefalo is falling abit short on damage compared with even her starter kit.

Bringing them closer together sounds fair and would encourage wigfrid players to tame a beefalo for combat.

8 hours ago, Mysterious box said:

Why Wendy she has no relation to being a rider Walter would have made the most sense with his friendly to animals nature and already being a mount character but Wigfrid is definitely the second most logical choice.

How is Walter friendly to animals??? Haha sure he cant even tame a critter cause woby would get jealous.

Walter is the very very very last character you would pick to have beefalo skills.

Its him and woby vs the world. Do you even play Walter??

Absolute insane take on Walter Lol

[SapoLover]

Oh, I was about to make a post when I noticed this one. This is mostly perfect, but I'm not so sure about Wigfrid's special weapons abilities being able to be used while riding a beefalo. It's not much useful outside the shield, and not even much. The saddle already has 40% damage reduction to make the beefalo tankier and it wouldn't make much sense imo. I think it would be better to let her healing song affect the beefalo, to enforce tankiness. Also, the enhancement of the default beefalo could be better.

[Mysterious box]

1 hour ago, Gashzer said:

How is Walter friendly to animals??? Haha sure he cant even tame a critter cause woby would get jealous.

Walter is the very very very last character you would pick to have beefalo skills.

Its him and woby vs the world. Do you even play Walter??

Absolute insane take on Walter Lol

You didn't watch his short at all did you...? He literally has a badge that tells you this. His quotes assume Woby would get jealous of us adopting another critter but never implies Woby has a problem with us using another mount and even then the quote is based on Walter's assumption don't use your gameplay preference as fact.

[Gashzer]

34 minutes ago, Mysterious box said:

You didn't watch his short at all did you...? He literally has a badge that tells you this. His quotes assume Woby would get jealous of us adopting another critter but never implies Woby has a problem with us using another mount and even then the quote is based on Walter's assumption don't use your gameplay preference as fact.

A badge about dogs lol taming hounds would be a better use of his skill tree and more lore accurate.

"Gameplay preference as fact" is the entirety of your arguement. Walter has no relationship with beefalos other than gameplay advantages so making skills for beefalo is only forcably fitting things into his lore to accommodate your playstyle!

[Mysterious box]

9 minutes ago, Gashzer said:

A badge about dogs lol taming hounds would be a better use of his skill tree and more lore accurate.

So if he had say a squirrel on his badge instead he would be a squirrel tamer? Believe it or not the badge is supposed to mean friend to animals not dog tamer.

 

11 minutes ago, Gashzer said:

"Gameplay preference as fact" is the entirety of your arguement. Walter has no relationship with beefalos other than gameplay advantages so making skills for beefalo is only forcably fitting things into his lore to accommodate your playstyle!

Aside from the fact he tries to befriend every creature he meets Woby included and there's no quotes across any of the beefalo or items that implies Woby has a issue with a beefalo companion. 

[Gashzer]

35 minutes ago, Mysterious box said:

Aside from the fact he tries to befriend every creature he meets Woby included and there's no quotes across any of the beefalo or items that implies Woby has a issue with a beefalo companion. 

The whole of their lore and relationship is Walter is fearless to a fault and woby is cowardly to a fault but together they balance each other out. Adding another animal walter cares for or has skills for wouldnt make sense and just diminish the relationship between him and woby.

Its like wendy getting skills to boost pigs. You could argue that abigails petal buff effects all followers so she should get skills to boost them too.

Walter has loads of options for skill ideas atm, skills for his slingshot, skills for woby in small form and big form (these could be better tracking skills for hunts). Skills to boost his tent, skills to boost campfire stories, skills to boost pinecone hat effects. Skills related to survivalist or scout ideas like drying jerky and bush crafts.

[Mysterious box]

38 minutes ago, Gashzer said:

The whole of their lore and relationship is Walter is fearless to a fault and woby is cowardly to a fault but together they balance each other out. Adding another animal walter cares for or has skills for wouldnt make sense and just diminish the relationship between him and woby.

Its like wendy getting skills to boost pigs. You could argue that abigails petal buff effects all followers so she should get skills to boost them too.

Walter has loads of options for skill ideas atm, skills for his slingshot, skills for woby in small form and big form (these could be better tracking skills for hunts). Skills to boost his tent, skills to boost campfire stories, skills to boost pinecone hat effects. Skills related to survivalist or scout ideas like drying jerky and bush crafts.

I mean it really doesn't diminish their relationship as Woby can do more to help Walter than just be his mount there's a whole world of possibility that a dog follower could. She could growl at enemies to startle them, catch critters, dig up stumps, graves and the like, collect resources etc. While her being a beginner's mount is alright there's only so much Klei can do to make her feel worthwhile without making her go completely out of character.

[Picklesaurus]

12 hours ago, SapoLover said:

Oh, I was about to make a post when I noticed this one. This is mostly perfect, but I'm not so sure about Wigfrid's special weapons abilities being able to be used while riding a beefalo. It's not much useful outside the shield, and not even much. The saddle already has 40% damage reduction to make the beefalo tankier and it wouldn't make much sense imo. I think it would be better to let her healing song affect the beefalo, to enforce tankiness. Also, the enhancement of the default beefalo could be better.

My initial idea was for the default Beefalo tendecy to not passively lose domestication over time when left alone, but I figured there isn't a way for them to check ether a Beefalo belongs to a Wigfrid with this skills or not unless she is the one holding the bell and than it would be redudant.

About song affecting Beefalo, I would really enjoy if there was a Beefalo song that buffed the riden Beefalo somehow, it would be a nice reference to the real Beefalo song Klei themselves created years ago:

Or they could have given her a skill that enables a special ability or attack when mounted on a  Beefalo like her new weapons can do with the right click of the mouse.
There were many ways for them to go about this Beefalo Rider skill Branch, but the current one feels really lackluster, especially for Wigfrid.
 

[july401]

On 12/4/2023 at 10:38 AM, Mysterious box said:

Why Wendy she has no relation to being a rider Walter would have made the most sense with his friendly to animals nature and already being a mount character but Wigfrid is definitely the second most logical choice.

make sense.

Maybe Its my own play style.

I usually tamed a beefalo when I was Wendy. Herself is 0.75 attacking rate, but riding a beefalo is completely 1.00 attacking rate