Woby's skill tree and how it fails to deliver

[Catuna_]

Woby's skill tree had a rocky start, costing 11 insight total to fully invest to which was funny to be fair and has since then been getting steady buffs while sticking with the original idea, but I think that the current way it is structured and designed dooms it to the fate of being a terrible branch.

I feel that this clarification is necessary before I begin; in this post I will be constantly mentioning beefalo and I think that it's very justified as the question for anyone with any beefalo experience is "Should I really invest insight into Woby instead of taming a beefalo?". Yes, I understand that Walter spawns with Woby and that big Woby is a day 1 thing... but aren't beefalo early game too? You don't need to wait 20 days for them to be usable, they are a huge benefit from the get go. You can obtain the saddle extremely early, and you can feed it lightbulbs, ferns, grass and twigs while also being able to make steamed twigs out of 1 twig and a bunch of mushrooms at the likely crockpot setpiece, when you factor in Woby's requirements for training: I think this makes it a very fair comparison unlike what some people may criticize this post for.

In this post I will go over every training branch, its scaling, synergies and anti-synergies with other perks and what I think can/should be done to fix certain problems.

To start off, I quite like the way that the branch is laid out, Walter gets a huge benefit from a single perk while being able to specialize/enhance what the player deems is worth it. This is a really nice way to go about it that doesn't result in filler/bloat.

 

The way this works is that Walter is offered all of the T1 perks with the Basic Training perk, and the respective T2 perk for every other perk that you pick. You're given 4 points, T1 perks are worth 1 point and T2 perks are worth 2, meaning that you are quite limited in what you can have active at a time which reinforces a play style of dynamically switching between what you would need. This is a perfectly decent concept in my opinion but one could argue that it adds a lot more to think about on a character who honestly already has a lot going on. This system also requires these perks to be impactful, since they can be inactive while Walter still has invested insight into them.

Big Woby's perks

Agility: Increases Woby's speed by 1/2 (13 max), takes 12 days total of riding to max out. The speed of Woby will gradually increase with badge progress, but it will still ramp down depending on her hunger. This makes her fall short of a beefalo who with a default saddle will have 9.8 speed and as a rider will have 12.4 speed with a glossamer saddle all without having speed that decreases, this also saves you 3 badge points.

Bravery and Support: 

• Bravery: Woby will only buck off Walter after he takes a collective 8 damage within 5 seconds, Bravery increases this threshold by 10/15 (up to 33) and is trained by dealing/taking a collective 800 damage. 8 damage is a very misleading number, as it translates to 80 damage with a thulecite crown and 160 with a marble suit... For context that means that you could be hit by one of the Twins and Woby would still not buck you.
• Support: Walter will lose 25/45% less sanity from being hit while on Woby, which I believe stacks with the pinetree pioneer hat. Walter will also gain up to 1.77/2.66 sanity per minute while riding Woby.

These are brought up together because they accomplish the same thing of making it less punishing to use Woby over a beefalo, while still being worse. A beefalo will soak the full damage from any non-ranged attack, making both bravery and support pale in comparison especially since Walter has no reason to be close to enemies considering that he can only perform ranged attacks ontop of Woby anyway. These two perks are very redundant in my opinion, as they simplify something already simple and go against the developers' initial intent for Woby to not try and compete or outclass beefalo.

What these perks end up doing is making Woby a bad beefalo pretty much, her sanity gain is less than that of a pudgy, her speed is still worse than the constant speed of any beefalo, she cannot attack (not that I want her to), Walter still takes the full damage on Woby etc etc.

My solution to this: Scrap Bravery and Support entirely, and rework Agility into Endurance;

• Endurance I: Increases Woby's speed by 1.5, decreases her hunger drain rate by 10%, Walter gains an innate 10% damage reduction while riding Woby.
• Endurance II: Increases Woby's speed by 3, decreases her hunger drain rate by 15%, Walter gains an innate 15% damage reduction while riding Woby.

Damage reduction accomplishes both what Support and Bravery try to accomplish, but you're not limited by the low badge points. This also makes Woby more appealing as a mount despite the recurring cost. It also adds more space for cooler Woby perks with more noticable active effects, rather than (quite frankly) boring badges that build up gradually from just playing the game how you'd otherwise play it. What else would be added? Iunno, maybe Woby could bark to scare small mobs or maybe she could ram/headbutt trees, boulders, etc for loot, something of that sort.
 

Small Woby

Digging:  Woby will attempt to dig up an item every 2 days, with the cooldown decreasing by 0.5/1 day based on badge progress. The success rate for digging ranges from 60% to 90% also depending on badge progress. The loot she can dig up varies from rotten eggs to morsels to feathers to panflutes and steel wool. I think that this perk is fine, it's cute, but the chance for a failure let alone failure at 100% badge progress sucks.

Fetching: Woby will fetch items within 2 tiles every 7 seconds, with the cooldown decreasing by 2/4 seconds depending on badge progress. The success rate starts at 60% and increases to 100% as badges are earned.Woby will only pick up items that match what she currently has in her bag. Just like digging, I think this shouldn't be able to fail. 7s is also an insane amount of time and I wish that it'd get decreased (the cooldown reduction can be re-tuned to compensate). This would decrease the need to spec into both T1 and T2 while also just making it scale better and faster.

Small and Big Woby shouldn't really have separate perks. There is no way to switch between the two forms conveniently, and seeing how Woby is currently just worse than a beefalo it really only encourages you to tame a beefalo and keep her small to train digging and gathering. Big woby SHOULD be able to dig and gather, probably even better/faster than small Woby. She could be more likely to succeed or she could have a lower cooldown giving big woby a purpose outside of riding her. These two sub-branches have such a big anti-synergy that feels very bad in gameplay especially when agility and digging take quite a while to max out individually. For this I think that there shouldn't be perks that don't benefit big Woby.

Furthermore, I think that the badge station should be portable, similar to WX's circuit extractor so that Walter can re-route Woby's training without needing a bulky structure, on-the-go Woby dynamic badge switching would make training her much more fun and engaging for the player in a way where they could need X perk then Y perk.

This basically wraps it up I'm feeling a bit lazy to finish this post I wanna nap woby skins plz

[_mylilsunshine_]

1 hour ago, Catuna_ said:

I feel that this clarification is necessary before I begin; in this post I will be constantly mentioning beefalo and I think that it's very justified as the question for anyone with any beefalo experience is "Should I really invest insight into Woby instead of taming a beefalo?". Yes, I understand that Walter spawns with Woby and that big Woby is a day 1 thing... but aren't beefalo early game too? You don't need to wait 20 days for them to be usable, they are a huge benefit from the get go. You can obtain the saddle extremely early, and you can feed it lightbulbs, ferns, grass and twigs while also being able to make steamed twigs out of 1 twig and a bunch of mushrooms at the likely crockpot setpiece, when you factor in Woby's requirements for training: I think this makes it a very fair comparison unlike what some people may criticize this post for.

Your comparison to Beefalo is absolutely valid. Before this beta, I would've argued that Woby is good because of day 1, no learning curve, etc. but now that her badges take as much time to train as a Beefalo, the comparison and consideration must be made. IS WOBY BETTER THAN A BEEFALO? Should she be? If not, what should she be instead?

1 hour ago, Catuna_ said:

Agility: Increases Woby's speed by 1/2 (13 max), takes 12 days total of riding to max out. The speed of Woby will gradually increase with badge progress, but it will still ramp down depending on her hunger. This makes her fall short of a beefalo who with a default saddle will have 9.8 speed and as a rider will have 12.4 speed with a glossamer saddle all without having speed that decreases, this also saves you 3 badge points.

Support: Walter will lose 25/45% less sanity from being hit while on Woby, which I believe stacks with the pinetree pioneer hat. Walter will also gain up to 1.77/2.66 sanity per minute while riding Woby.

What these perks end up doing is making Woby a bad beefalo pretty much, her sanity gain is less than that of a pudgy, her speed is still worse than the constant speed of any beefalo, she cannot attack (not that I want her to), Walter still takes the full damage on Woby etc etc.

As someone who put down the station from.. day 3 and constantly kept up with the monster meat maintenance and ride Woby, Agility was a draaaaaag to train. Even at like day ~20ish I was still only above 90%. The sanity gain was nice for ruins rushing since I healed myself with the tent, and the speed bonus was noticeable, but not very game-changing. I am fine with these badges, however, I don't think a numerical change is what they need, and I'm saying this as someone who rides Woby 90% of the time and has a full stack of monster meat on me 100% of the time. Woby needs something.. different that I can't quite put my hand on. In the meantime, something to deal with the decaying hunger/speed and small hunger capacity would be nice.

1 hour ago, Catuna_ said:

The way this works is that Walter is offered all of the T1 perks with the Basic Training perk, and the respective T2 perk for every other perk that you pick. You're given 4 points, T1 perks are worth 1 point and T2 perks are worth 2, meaning that you are quite limited in what you can have active at a time which reinforces a play style of dynamically switching between what you would need. This is a perfectly decent concept in my opinion but one could argue that it adds a lot more to think about on a character who honestly already has a lot going on. This system also requires these perks to be impactful, since they can be inactive while Walter still has invested insight into them.

Furthermore, I think that the badge station should be portable, similar to WX's circuit extractor so that Walter can re-route Woby's training without needing a bulky structure, on-the-go Woby dynamic badge switching would make training her much more fun and engaging for the player in a way where they could need X perk then Y perk.

I didn't even consider swapping badges depending on my needs. I was so preoccupied with boss rushing that anything other than speed+sanity was frivolous to me. And also maybe because I put the station in the middle of bum butt nowhere and I don't want to haul ass or recraft another. Seriously, WHY IS IT AN IMMOBILE STATION! even the tent is mobile.. jeez. Even then, I don't think fetch would do much for me, and dig is cute, that's all.

1 hour ago, Catuna_ said:

woby skins plz

[Radicaljoe]

It would be nice if Woby didn't try to compete with beefalo, but instead tried to find a new niche. 

Gather is a good example (despite how slow it was even before the nerf) that gives Woby some helpful utility. Of course, that utility is destroyed completely if you feed Woby, so I think it would be cool if big Woby would harvest items from the backpack. Ex. Picking twigs for sticks in the pack. Now Woby has a new skill to fulfill that isn't directly competing with beefalo, which cannot gather any materials except poop.

4 hours ago, Catuna_ said:

woby skins plz

I demand little Woby dressed up as a small berry bush! 

[gaymime]

28 minutes ago, Radicaljoe said:

I demand little Woby dressed up as a small berry bush! 

woberry?! oOo

[Mysterious box]

39 minutes ago, Radicaljoe said:

I demand little Woby dressed up as a small berry bush! 

 

11 minutes ago, gaymime said:

woberry?! oOo

Spoiler

 

[Walrusst]

One thing I've stated elsewhere for better big and small interoperability:
Big woby effects for dig/fetch aren't hard to imagine, say, if big woby could be used as a shovel with dig (Giving you a manual means of training dig,) and a fast foraging boost at level 2, and that level 1 fetch lets you access woby's inventory from the saddle, level 2 lets you open chests from woby (Making fetch Woby a convenient bulk cargo transporter.)

Small woby with agility could gain the ability to take other badges out to water (So woby can fetch stuff like bottles, dig up kelp, and at level 2 help spook fish to make sea-fishing easier by shortening resistance occasionally [Woby gets scared by the fish too to give this a cooldown].)

As for the support stuff, letting people who pet woby get sanity back with a 1 day/2 minute cooldown is something that could be useful if we don't totally nuke support.

[Chewabacca]

Absolutely agreed, there's no reason for Big Woby to lose some of her abilities, especially when that also costs dearly needed training time. I've seen people in real time who were excited to give Walter's skilltree a try find out about the Woby skills being restricted to certain forms and go "wait, doesn't that just mean I should ride a beefalo and keep Woby in her smaller form all the time so that I can use dig and fetch?" And yeah: there is also no reason that the training board, a fairly expensive structure to construct, should be stationary when nothing else about Walter's kit is.

Support has actually been pretty useful to me, especially underground where there aren't a ton of trees, but bravery doesn't really change anything about how Walter plays. The damage tolerance increase is small even at 100%, and you still want a marble suit to avoid getting bucked off if you think you're likely to take damage. I think to make it at all useful you'd have to make it so that at 100% it's viable to use a log suit instead of spending the marble on armor. This would probably be good for people who want to use be both ranged and melee fighters. Speaking of melee: I have my disagreements with the crowd that wants Walter to have perks specifically rewarding him for melee combat, but the way support and bravery are trained punishes melee fighting in a way that I don't think is quite fair. The fact that you can only train either by fighting while mounted on Woby means that you're encouraged to use the slingshot even when a spear might be quicker. Woby is at Walter's side all the time, let her train just by watching him, whether he's on foot or riding her.

Also, on the subject of giving Woby more unique perks: Klei, if you're listening, this is your chance to make her not pretty much useless as soon as you step on a boat. Seriously, at sea agility and her movement in general is flat-out useless, support is somewhat functional but the fact that you can't interact with the ship while mounted on her means you're going to have to be desperate to choose her over the tent, bravery is only useful if there's an advantage to being on Woby in combat and there's none at sea, dig doesn't work at all, and there aren't a whole lot of items lying on the ground for her to pick up with fetch. Let the big dog swim and go for buried treasure.

[Radicaljoe]

It would be nice if they made the Woby pack unstealable from. (Probably not correct grammar)

Not a large issue, but there's been times leaving ruins where I turn around and Woby is getting mugged by 37 spleumonkeys, and they steal all my expensive stuff. 

[Catuna_]

10 hours ago, Radicaljoe said:

It would be nice if they made the Woby pack unstealable from. (Probably not correct grammar)

Not a large issue, but there's been times leaving ruins where I turn around and Woby is getting mugged by 37 spleumonkeys, and they steal all my expensive stuff. 

mount her they can't steal from her if you're riding her

[Radicaljoe]

4 hours ago, Catuna_ said:

mount her they can't steal from her if you're riding her

yeah I've learned that, but then I can't gamble until she shrinks again!

[This14Real]

On 1/20/2025 at 2:13 PM, Radicaljoe said:

I demand little Woby dressed up as a small berry bush!

On 1/20/2025 at 2:42 PM, gaymime said:

woberry?! oOo

Don’t be suspicious, don’t be suspicious!

[gaymime]

1 hour ago, This14Real said:

Don’t be suspicious, don’t be suspicious!

this is too much quality for a shitpost. i just can't X''D