Regarding future Wormwood skill rebalancing

[HowlVoid]

I am so incredibly happy with what I saw in the stream! 

There is one thing that I felt wasn't touched on the stream: carrats.

They were left completely unchanged and given I feel the devs want to promote versatility based on the comments on the growth spurt changes (now everyone has a reason to use them!); I hope we can open a discussion on the carrats. 

They pick up food on the ground and that's it. They require an intensive amount of skill points to get to and are locked behind one of the "final bosses" in the game. I think it's fair to think that the left side of the skill tree isn't just for farming (moon shrooms changes for combat/moon shrooms hat/saladmander). 

If carrats are intentionally added to make the subsequent skills more costly than I understand (though I still think swapping them with light bugs is the easiest solution). However, they aren't incredibly versatile in their current state and many will find the point wasted. While they can be used to some extent mid battle to collect the loot, it tends to no be worth carrying the carrots around for just that one interaction.

If they are anything like the vermin they are based off then they should be very intelligent creatures, with lil hands!

(Wouldn't it be reasonable to let them hand us some manure? Don't they, like wormwood, see it as a consumable? Or just let them harvest food perhaps, and solidify them as a base type pet and promote off farming plot massive farming!)

[Ohan]

I would really like to see carrats fetch manure and guano.

They already fetch rot, rotten eggs and glommer goop cuz theyre classified as food.

Manure/guano is plant food and worm is a plant so his unique pets should take this into consideration. 

This would synergize greatly with the syrup since it makes pigmen spread manure everywhere.  

———

I didnt watch the stream but saw yuuko’s list of worm changes: 

6 hours ago, Yuuko said:

Wormwood:

Lightbug buff - if you have more lightbugs they get increased light radius.  At 6x bugs you get more than a lantern radius iirc.

Saladmanders buff - if you have 2x saladmanders out they get increased health.

Lunar Guardian buff - now grants planar defense, and the spike damage proc includes planar damage type so this skill remains relevant post-planar.

Flower Power - now increases effect of bloom enhancing items like fertilizer rather than "stay in bloom longer" to enable more staying in bloom always play.

Moon Shroom Cloud - eating is quicker.  Also can craft sleep bait that is edible.  Any mob that eats it gets put to sleep.

Might not be everything for him.

Do you know if this is all?

im assuming the lunar guardian part is about husk specialist instead? That would be really interesting. Did they mention numbers for the planar def/dmg? 

Bramble trap dmg also becoming partially planar with the trap skill would be nice. 

Saw someone else comment the moonshroom bait is a generic craft and not worm exclusive. 

im curious to know the hp buff for the salads. Back to pre-nerf 900 perhaps?? 

Also curious to see what the lightbug buff looks like. I never bothered with them cuz theyre so expensive and get stuck on land borders in the caves where theyd be most useful and they cant keep up with top worm speeds.

Edited March 1 by Ohan

[Yuuko]

32 minutes ago, Ohan said:

I didnt watch the stream but saw yuuko’s list of worm changes: 

Do you know if this is all?

im assuming the lunar guardian part is about husk specialist instead? That would be really interesting. Did they mention numbers for the planar def/dmg? 

Bramble trap dmg also becoming partially planar with the trap skill would be nice. 

Saw someone else comment the moonshroom bait is a generic craft and not worm exclusive. 

im curious to know the hp buff for the salads. Back to pre-nerf 900 perhaps?? 

Also curious to see what the lightbug buff looks like. I never bothered with them cuz theyre so expensive and get stuck on land borders in the caves where theyd be most useful and they cant keep up with top worm speeds.

Oh yeah, you're right.  Its the Bramble Husk Specialist skill.  I wrote the wrong one.

They did not give numbers for planar damage and defense.

[Swiyss]

24 minutes ago, Yuuko said:

Oh yeah, you're right.  Its the Bramble Husk Specialist skill.  I wrote the wrong one.

They did not give numbers for planar damage and defense.

They did. 20 planar defense.

EDIT : This is wrong, I just checked, Jason was talking about the 20 damage from the bramble husk, and I remembered incorrectly.

Edited March 1 by Swiyss

[skile]

9 minutes ago, Swiyss said:

They did. 20 planar defense.

:O

Wigfrid's helmet is in shambles. 

[HowlVoid]

6 hours ago, Ohan said:

I would really like to see carrats fetch manure and guano.

They already fetch rot, rotten eggs and glommer goop cuz theyre classified as food.

Manure/guano is plant food and worm is a plant so his unique pets should take this into consideration. 

This would synergize greatly with the syrup since it makes pigmen spread manure everywhere.  

Yessssss. We need this so bad.

6 hours ago, Ohan said:

———

I didnt watch the stream but saw yuuko’s list of worm changes: 

Do you know if this is all?

They also mentioned that they would increase the hp Regen on photosynthesis. Assuming this is in a good place paying for summons may not be so bad, so I'm looking forward to that.

6 hours ago, Ohan said:

im assuming the lunar guardian part is about husk specialist instead? That would be really interesting. Did they mention numbers for the planar def/dmg? 

They did not, but yeah it's the husk.

6 hours ago, Ohan said:

Bramble trap dmg also becoming partially planar with the trap skill would be nice. 

Yes +1. I agree.

6 hours ago, Ohan said:

Saw someone else comment the moonshroom bait is a generic craft and not worm exclusive. 

We also get a hat that drop spores that do tiny 10 DMG. Also not wormwood exclusive, it's a new mush hat (from toadstool I imagine). 

6 hours ago, Ohan said:

im curious to know the hp buff for the salads. Back to pre-nerf 900 perhaps?? 

Gosh that would be nice. Any buff to them is greatly appreciated.

6 hours ago, Ohan said:

Also curious to see what the lightbug buff looks like. I never bothered with them cuz theyre so expensive and get stuck on land borders in the caves where theyd be most useful and they cant keep up with top worm speeds.

Same! 

[Jakepeng99]

Carrats are already one of his best skills, maybe contendor for the best. Buff is not near required, but some stuff can still be done.

 

It is only 1 skill point. You spend 5 on the shroom skills which is a good investement.

But, i want carrat to pick up fertaliser too. That would be good.

7 hours ago, HowlVoid said:

If carrats are intentionally added to make the subsequent skills more costly than I understand (though I still think swapping them with light bugs is the easiest solution).

Carrats are significantly stronger than light bugs, this would be bad. Carrats easily gather tons of seeds, and are useful to have around. They pick up food before monsters eat it, and among other uses like farming big crops.

7 hours ago, HowlVoid said:

and many will find the point wasted.

I see many other wormwood players use them all the time. They are a top skill.

7 hours ago, HowlVoid said:

it tends to no be worth carrying the carrots around for just that one interaction.

You dont need to. You turn 1 carrot into a carrat, and use 0 inventory space. They last for ages.

7 hours ago, HowlVoid said:

Or just let them harvest food perhaps, and solidify them as a base type pet and promote off farming plot massive farming!)

Maybe.

Edited March 1 by Jakepeng99

[HowlVoid]

18 minutes ago, Jakepeng99 said:

Carrats are already one of his best skills, maybe contendor for the best. Buff is not near required, but some stuff can still be done.

With such an exaggerated claim, that I'm willing to bet real money on most people would not agree with, I'm wondering why you decided to phrase it like that.

I can understand someone who does a lot of big vegetable farming would find the skill useful but saying it's THE most useful given other skills have far more applications is a head scratcher for sure.

18 minutes ago, Jakepeng99 said:

It is only 1 skill point. You spend 5 on the shroom skills which is a good investement.

I find the skill to not be useful beyond a single niche (large spider farming) so it would make every subsequent skill cost more. Weather an investment is good or not is dependent on the playstyle. I have a heard a lot of players not like the mushroom skills and if the goal is the saladmanders/lightbugs, then it is a large investment.

18 minutes ago, Jakepeng99 said:

But, i want carrat to pick up fertaliser too. That would be good.

Carrats are significantly stronger than light bugs, this would be bad. Carrats easily gather tons of seeds, and are useful to have around. They pick up food before monsters eat it, and among other uses like farming big crops.

Light bugs are far more universally useful. Light is something that could easily take up more than 50% of gameplay time (nights and underground) just from an objective standpoint I think this is false. Lightbugs just weren't worth the cost before but might be way more favorable after this patch. 

Your three examples are basically niches, seeds are plentiful in the early game but they have a falling off point where they start to become more rare. And farmers will have all the seeds they could ever want after some time. Food is equally less scarce as time progresses and the only mob where food runs the risk of being eaten is when dealing with spiders. Another thing worth pointing out is that they don't scare birds for seeds so a lot of times you end up being right on top of the seed anyways.

18 minutes ago, Jakepeng99 said:

I see many other wormwood players use them all the time. They are a top skill.

I won't accuse you of lying because I think this has a very logical explanation: They're a cute pet and very easy to acquire early game given how abundant carrats are. It's a case of if have it, why not use it? But generally if you're going to tackle hard content early on as wormwood it's a waste of hp.

If you couldn't pick up stuff on a beefalo like in the old days I would probably agree with you.

18 minutes ago, Jakepeng99 said:

You dont need to. You turn 1 carrot into a carrat, and use 0 inventory space. They last for ages.

Maybe.

Unless it dies... There are cases where you would want to dismiss it too or the timer just ran out.

[GenomeSquirrel]

While I appreciate the lightbugs more than enough not to want it reversed, mushrooms planters do best in caves, and carrats are bad at gathering cave resources and incapabale of gathering resources from the other left branch. They also pick stuff off the ground, in particular stuff I'd like to turn into rot ...

 

And there's no way I'm doing mush planters AND giant crops, mushrooms already fill all three meters

[HowlVoid]

14 minutes ago, GenomeSquirrel said:

...carrats are... incapabale of gathering resources from the other left branch. 

That is honestly such a good argument, they don't even synergize with the path that leads up to them.

14 minutes ago, GenomeSquirrel said:

And there's no way I'm doing mush planters AND giant crops, mushrooms already fill all three meters

Yeah, I feel the same. Just feels like a stepping stone for the rest. My ideas aren't actually that great tbh but when you ask for the moon you are very likely to just be ignored by the devs. Given how little interaction there already is between worm and plants I really don't want carrats scrapped. I hope they do something with them that makes them feel... More versatile. 

That's really all I ask for, for them not be so niche.

[Jakepeng99]

59 minutes ago, HowlVoid said:

Unless it dies... There are cases where you would want to dismiss it too or the timer just ran out.

Rarely happens.

1 hour ago, HowlVoid said:

With such an exaggerated claim, that I'm willing to bet real money on most people would not agree with, I'm wondering why you decided to phrase it like that.

I can understand someone who does a lot of big vegetable farming would find the skill useful but saying it's THE most useful given other skills have far more applications is a head scratcher for sure.

I don't do any big vegetable farming. It just saves so much time picking stuff up. It is a lazy forager with a bigger range for food at a super cheap price. I see alot of people on servers saying how they like it getting them seeds. (Also seeds dont drop off late game)

1 hour ago, HowlVoid said:

Light bugs are far more universally useful. Light is something that could easily take up more than 50% of gameplay time (nights and underground) just from an objective standpoint I think this is false. Lightbugs just weren't worth the cost before but might be way more favorable after this patch. 

Both are good but carrat is overall better since light bugs can start to fall off, especially if you beat celestial champion.

 

 

[GenomeSquirrel]

Gathering mushroom spores might be an interesting caves niche for them.

[Cheggf]

11 hours ago, Ohan said:

I didnt watch the stream but saw yuuko’s list of worm changes: 

17 hours ago, Yuuko said:

Wormwood:

Lightbug buff - if you have more lightbugs they get increased light radius.  At 6x bugs you get more than a lantern radius iirc.

Saladmanders buff - if you have 2x saladmanders out they get increased health.

Lunar Guardian buff - now grants planar defense, and the spike damage proc includes planar damage type so this skill remains relevant post-planar.

Flower Power - now increases effect of bloom enhancing items like fertilizer rather than "stay in bloom longer" to enable more staying in bloom always play.

Moon Shroom Cloud - eating is quicker.  Also can craft sleep bait that is edible.  Any mob that eats it gets put to sleep.

Might not be everything for him.

Do you know if this is all?

im assuming the lunar guardian part is about husk specialist instead? That would be really interesting. Did they mention numbers for the planar def/dmg? 

Bramble trap dmg also becoming partially planar with the trap skill would be nice. 

Saw someone else comment the moonshroom bait is a generic craft and not worm exclusive. 

im curious to know the hp buff for the salads. Back to pre-nerf 900 perhaps?? 

Also curious to see what the lightbug buff looks like. I never bothered with them cuz theyre so expensive and get stuck on land borders in the caves where theyd be most useful and they cant keep up with top worm speeds.

Sleep bait is not part of Wormwood, that is just an item anyone can make that Wormwood has easier access to due to being able to plant lunar mushrooms in mushroom planters. What is part of Wormwood is they increased the regeneration speed of that one healing in daylight perk.

Also the bloom perk is changing from +50% starting and maximum bloom to +30% bloom from items, which would require you to use items more often. They said it will allow him to "bloom faster", but unless the perk changes something about how bloom works the difference in speed would be unnoticeable (693 seconds for a fish morsel to fully bloom you, instead of 699 seconds).

[Yuuko]

46 minutes ago, Cheggf said:

Also the bloom perk is changing from +50% starting and maximum bloom to +30% bloom from items, which would require you to use items more often. They said it will allow him to "bloom faster", but unless the perk changes something about how bloom works the difference in speed would be unnoticeable (693 seconds for a fish morsel to fully bloom you, instead of 699 seconds).

Yeah I think with the current skill it was more convenient to bounce in and out of bloom, but consuming items to stay in bloom was very expensive.  This change makes it less rewarding to bounce in and out, but I'm not sure if the impact on staying in bloom is significant enough.  How much super growth serum do you need to stay in bloom through a year with this?

[Cheggf]

5 minutes ago, Yuuko said:

Yeah I think with the current skill it was more convenient to bounce in and out of bloom, but consuming items to stay in bloom was very expensive.  This change makes it less rewarding to bounce in and out, but I'm not sure if the impact on staying in bloom is significant enough.  How much super growth serum do you need to stay in bloom through a year with this?

A use of growth formula costs 0.2 ashes (so a twig or grass or rot or something) and 0.2 kelp (which are easy to amass and regrow in only 3 days, yearround). They are essentially free, I would much prefer going an extra 20 minutes before needing to refertilize over using slightly less of this free item. Unless they did something more than just make the items worth 30% more I think this is a nerf.

[Evelo]

15 hours ago, HowlVoid said:

I'm willing to bet real money on most people would not agree with

Gah crap. I am just 1 Wormwood main not "most."

Anyway, after reading through a lot of this post, as you know Howl we and others were very verbal with the first round of Wormwood skillset. Overall I am "meh" about the changes. I personally don't use Lightbugs since I can just get them from the Lunar Grotto and they last forever. I prefer the Carrat and the Saladmander (even though I think they are useless, they are adorable. 2x HP still makes them useless but just cuter for longer ).

Over all I wish they redid the plant crafting branch by making it a station then replacing it with... anything that isn't a craftable. The biggest boon for me was the Rain washing away rot. If carrats don't pick up fertilizers, meh, whatever I can live with it. The bonus to the Bramble Husk is pretty neat. I think that trait pre-buff is too strong in general but just my opinion. I would have been happier if they just made the trait give a bonus to the amount of HP the armor has. (As well as Brightshade armor cause that's a Wormwood staple now thematically)

The Photosynthesis buff I think wasn't needed. Wormyboy's whole downside is "Can't heal by eating" but he has so many other options why give him passive regen? Never made mechanical sense to me to include that as that defeats his whole negative trait. Well somewhat not entirely.

I feel this could have been a great opportunity for Klei to give characters some baseline stuff (mostly for Willow and Wigfrid) and reduce the over all power of the Skillsets to appease everyone. That is sadly not the case. So I will just keep being active in my (losing) fight against skillsets and make sure that whatever is done to Wormwood is a net neutral or positive (as I see fit cause obviously I am biased).