[Poll] On Maxwell's Book Reading Ability

[GetNerfedOn]

[Cheggf]

It doesn't even really benefit him. 99% of the books' power comes from massing resources or making lingering things that don't require you to stay as the character who read the book. There is no point to remove this, it's just a cute little lore thing like Wurt being able to read the books that might have some situational use in multiplayer.

[BB Marioni]

36 minutes ago, Cheggf said:

It doesn't even really benefit him. 99% of the books' power comes from massing resources or making lingering things that don't require you to stay as the character who read the book. There is no point to remove this, it's just a cute little lore thing like Wurt being able to read the books that might have some situational use in multiplayer.

I feel the same. When playing Maxwell, I never really experienced a situation where I needed to get a Wickerbottom book. Even in multiplayer where a Wickerbottom is available, I wouldnt want to waste inventory space and sanity for any of the books, and usually our Wickerbottom's role is mostly for making large farms in base.

I do agree though that Wickerbottom's identity needs to be improved, but they should focus on her being a librarian than a farmer XD

[NPCMaxwell]

I said "Yes" cause I prefer the "book curse" thing. I don't really mean yes in entirely removed though. More that there could be punishments for "stealing" the books involved

[WilsonHiggs]

They made it so maxwell consumes more sanity when reading wicker's books but this change is pointless because insanity only make shadows steal your fire, wavy jones spawning on boats, bunny mobs changing and shadow monsters attacking the player which are countered with bone helm...

Sanity needs more effects. Except for wavy, we didn't received any new effect. Not even planar shadows, rictus cofcof. Right now, sanity,  outside of shadows, only affects new player because experience players dont use campfires. So, when a maxwell is using wicker's books nothing bad happens 

[Ridley]

I think everyone should be able to read the books because she would feel more like a librarian if people were borrowing her books. There would probably need to be some drawback added to doing so though.

[Dingle]

I think it should be removed, in the sense of it makes Wickerbottom nearly worthless. Make the books and bookcases, switch to Maxwell. Then you get to be two characters at once.

Though I don't mind if the devs take their time on this. I play with a Maxwell. It will be fun while it lasts.

The bookshelves were a massive mistake.

[Yifei_]

Sometimes I feel that Maxwell is more suited for reading than Wickerbottom. He has a high demand for nightmare fuel, and compared to Wickerbottom, Maxwell loses more sanity from reading, which helps him quickly obtain a lot of nightmare fuels. For books like Applied Silviculture and Horticulture, Maxwell can quickly complete tasks such as gathering grass/twigs, chopping trees, and mining stone fruits with the help of shadow servants from the Codex Umbra, making resource production more efficient.

In the early stages of the game, Wickerbottom and Maxwell might each have their own strengths, but in the later stages when bookshelves and books are no longer scarce, Wickerbottom is almost entirely replaced by Maxwell. Personally, I hope to address this issue while retaining Maxwell's current reading abilities.

[Frosty_Mentos]

I can summon grumbles either as Wicker or Maxwell and it'll have almost the same effect as deploying regular bees. Tenticles either Maxwell or any other character were to summon would only benefit specific resource farms.

It woooould technically make Wicker more relevant power wise to artificially make people play as her more, but it would suck for Maxwells that use them these days as well as, well, Wicker doesn't really have any kind of progression apart of amassing resources and then disappearing for the rest of the game till needing them again.

[Riddla]

Sorry for advertising my own thread, but I think it can give an extra insight on more of people's opinions from the past and provide additional data:

 

(weirdly enough, a lot of the pages have disappeared from this topic after archival sadly, no idea why)


As for my very own opinion, I feel rather torn on this.
I'm not a big fan of Maxwell yoinking Wickerbottom's whole kit on top of his already juicy shadow spells.
Multiplayer-wise though, it feels nice to have a friend you can ask to read something for you when you're too busy or far away. As long as you don't meet insufferable people who shout in your ear "lolz why play wicker just play maxwell he is better xd"

There's a lot of hope that Wickerbottom's skilltree will make her even more fun to play and add very interesting combat spells that differentiate from Maxwell's shadow spells. I personally view Wickerbottom as a proactive caster, and Maxwell as a reactive caster, as in Wickerbottom setting things up before fights, and Maxwell dynamically casting spells in the middle of combat.

[Dingle]

It could have worked if they didn't add the bookshelves that regenerate her books forever.

If Maxwell gets to read her books, why not just merge the characters?

The devs should get rid of both Maxwell and Wickerbottom. And then make a new character: Mackerbottom.

[Kwaik]

It's too late and doesn't make sense to remove 

 

The answer is what's going to happen. Wickerbottom will get her skill tree, and the new books will be stronger and tied to requiring skills invested in them 

[dois raios]

I think Maxwell should have his upsides and downsides.

And Wickerbottom should have her upsides and downsides.

Maxwell having wicker's upsides and his own upsides at the same time is strange in my view.

[Cassielu]

One character shouldn't be able to access the full power of another, especially when both Wickerbottom and Maxwell are such powerful characters.

[NPCMaxwell]

3 hours ago, WilsonHiggs said:

They made it so maxwell consumes more sanity when reading wicker's books but this change is pointless because insanity only make shadows steal your fire, wavy jones spawning on boats, bunny mobs changing and shadow monsters attacking the player which are countered with bone helm...

Sanity needs more effects. Except for wavy, we didn't received any new effect. Not even planar shadows, rictus cofcof. Right now, sanity,  outside of shadows, only affects new player because experience players dont use campfires. So, when a maxwell is using wicker's books nothing bad happens 

Exactly! So if they want to keep that mini-„punishment“ they either have to increase the punishments effects in general or give him a harsher specific curse for using the books

[hyoton123]

It’s a fun easter egg and I dont think people swap from wicker to max specifically to read books unless they want to end on max. I don’t think it’s a big deal…

…except now that dingle mentions it, the bookcases are a bit obnoxious. But thats it. I could see him being punished in new and entertaining ways for reading them, though. 

 

If wicker gets skill tree books then it’ll  be moot, anyway. He won’t be able to skill into them.

[Walrusst]

Another option is for wicker to get something like a standard read and a cast for her books. Like she can equip her books in her hand for smaller uses that work like a staff. That way she is unique and powerful without taking stuff away from people.

That way her books have both a godpower mode (Which maxwell can happily do,) and a lower sanity/durability drain small cast which makes them more useful as a combat item or a tool. Some of these casts would have really hidden uses like the fire absorbing one doing something weird like absorbing the heat of burning enemies so bad they freeze and take damage from the thermal shock. (Including freezing enraged dragonfly.)

Others are more obvious and blunt, like the everything encylopedia being heavy working as a slow strong cork bat like weapon. (Maybe all books are decent weapons when you match them against the right enemies, like the fish book against aquatic enemies, bees versus the bee queen, sleepy stories versus shadows, end is nigh verus clockworks. Only 12 damage when you  match the book/enemy wrong, but positively insane damage when you use the book right. The everything encyclopedia being more just unique for hitting heavily against everything  for the slow swing speed.)

Others I can think of:

• the bee book being able to command nearby bees to attack a target or allowing you to pick up bees out of the air as if you were their queen, and the like.  (Birds of the world might also give you bird trust, or give you improved results from feeding a caged bird while held.)
• sleepy time stories aggroing nightmares on sleeping enemies, share your insomnia/distract your horrors onto other people. Gain sanity when sleeping things are hit.
• Being able use the fishing book to pull items twoards you, similar to how you can fish up ocean debris. this can also be used to pull fish onto land.

[Echsrick]

remove it, feels just weird that he can do that...i  guess something simmilar to that is how warly and walter both can use willows lighter to cook food because all 3 share the fast cookin perk but like...maxwells book is used completly differendly now then wickers one

[YouKnowWho142]

I don’t think it was ever a problem before the bookshelf was added and before Maxwell went from a pure harvester to a character who can already do pretty much everything. Before that, I didn’t have an issue with it since if he ever wanted more books a wickerbottom would be needed to create more books. Due to books being infinite though, I think the best compromise is that Maxwell should still be able to read the books, but not replenish them in the bookshelf. Regardless of whether you find the book effects “niche” (if you consider free summons, disabling rain permanently, research anywhere, permanent/controllable full moons, free temperature regulation, free light, etc niche) they should stay to wickerbottom as it is her entire set of upsides, and they should not all be entirely taken away by Maxwell permanently. This is not an interaction that exists with any other characters, as most character items rely on needing to be crafted again repeatedly for everyone to have access (battle helms, bramble husks, bramble trap, lighter, merm disguise, wreath, etc)

I don’t think a skill tree would particularly fix that interaction either, not in the same way Winona’s skill tree fixed swapping catapults (which they nerfed anyway in that update by at first making them inaccessible to other characters and settling at requiring others to activate the catapults manually, which takes longer and isn’t as accessible), so there’s nothing to stop wicker from getting a similar treatment in nerfing Maxwell using her books

[Mike23Ua]

It’s going to depend entirely on whatever Klei adds to Maxwell during his skill tree.

For example: Wortox got a really cool “decoy” ability now and I’m 900% certain that the character who’s always making shadow clones of himself should’ve had this ability before it was EVER given to Wortox.

I also kinda just want to see Maxwell fade into the ground in signature Nightmare fuel liquid & popping back up someplace else, similar to how Izanami in the game smite vanished into the ground before popping back out in a location.

You guys can say it doesn’t fit Maxwells persona all you’d like, but considering that this dude was able to pop up at every segment of the game and mock Wilson throughout his journey, If ANY Character should be able to do it, it’s Maxwell.

And obviously in order to get cool stuff of his own like this: His ability to be Wicker 2.0 needs to be nerfed or outright removed.

[Well-met]

It used to be a cool synergy since the original survivors had very bland abilities, but yeah this here should not be kept anymore.

[Cheggf]

6 hours ago, Dingle said:

I think it should be removed, in the sense of it makes Wickerbottom nearly worthless. Make the books and bookcases, switch to Maxwell. Then you get to be two characters at once.

Though I don't mind if the devs take their time on this. I play with a Maxwell. It will be fun while it lasts.

The bookshelves were a massive mistake.

They could literally remove Maxwell from the game and nothing would change with Wickerbottom. There are exactly zero people on the entire planet who are picking Maxwell because they want to mass an enormous amount of resources to create tons of books, then switch to Wickerbottom to make books, then run around with a nearly unusable Sleepytime Stories book that's just a terrible pan flute. They are going to be using a pan flute, if they're that far in they can easily keep making more of them especially with the Deconstruction Staff.

Stop being disingenuous. Before the bookshelf was added you guys were complaining that Wickerbottom is a swap character because all she does is read books to create 10,000 sticks/fish/grass/whatever and place a bunch of tentacles near scary things you don't want to fight, then you switch off Wickerbottom. Now that the bookcase is here you're pretending like that isn't the entirety of Wickerbottom's character and for some reason you're going to magically start playing Wickerbottom as soon as evil old Mr. Carter loses this worthless lore interaction that doesn't even benefit him. When Maxwell stops being able to read Wickerbottom's books you're still not going to play her because you're still going to see her as a swap character.

Put your effort into discussing positive ways to make Wickerbottom not so boring instead of just inventing fake imaginary issues that won't change anything if they get ""solved"".

4 hours ago, Cassielu said:

One character shouldn't be able to access the full power of another, especially when both Wickerbottom and Maxwell are such powerful characters.

Every single character in the entire game can access the full power of Wickerbottom. If Wickerbottom actually gained powers, such as skills to make her books better, things that aren't her books, passive effects related to her books, books that aren't just one-and-done things, etc, then people wouldn't have access to her full powers. But as it is right now even Wilson has access to the full set of Wickerbottom's powers, and that won't change if Maxwell stops being able to read the books. 

[Dingle]

10 minutes ago, Cheggf said:

They could literally remove Maxwell from the game and nothing would change with Wickerbottom. There are exactly zero people on the entire planet who are picking Maxwell because they want to mass an enormous amount of resources to create tons of books, then switch to Wickerbottom to make books, then run around with a nearly unusable Sleepytime Stories book that's just a terrible pan flute. They are going to be using a pan flute, if they're that far in they can easily keep making more of them especially with the Deconstruction Staff.

Stop being disingenuous. Before the bookshelf was added you guys were complaining that Wickerbottom is a swap character because all she does is read books to create 10,000 sticks/fish/grass/whatever and place a bunch of tentacles near scary things you don't want to fight, then you switch off Wickerbottom. Now that the bookcase is here you're pretending like that isn't the entirety of Wickerbottom's character and for some reason you're going to magically start playing Wickerbottom as soon as evil old Mr. Carter loses this worthless lore interaction that doesn't even benefit him. When Maxwell stops being able to read Wickerbottom's books you're still not going to play her because you're still going to see her as a swap character.

Put your effort into discussing positive ways to make Wickerbottom not so boring instead of just inventing fake imaginary issues that won't change anything if they get ""solved"".

Every single character in the entire game can access the full power of Wickerbottom. If Wickerbottom actually gained powers, such as skills to make her books better, things that aren't her books, passive effects related to her books, books that aren't just one-and-done things, etc, then people wouldn't have access to her full powers. But as it is right now even Wilson has access to the full set of Wickerbottom's powers, and that won't change if Maxwell stops being able to read the books. 

You do know that Maxwell can read Wickerbottom's books, right?

[Wawchik]

5 hours ago, Cassielu said:

One character shouldn't be able to access the full power of another, especially when both Wickerbottom and Maxwell are such powerful characters.

To be fair, Wicker isn't that powerful, most of her abilities are just budget versions of already existing things. And I really can't think why anybody would pick wicker if they're not megabasing

Just now, Dingle said:

You do know that Maxwell can read Wickerbottom's books, right?

That doesn't affect wickerbottom at all, it just creates an illusion of her being a swap character

[Dingle]

3 minutes ago, Wawchik said:

To be fair, Wicker isn't that powerful, most of her abilities are just budget versions of already existing things. And I really can't think why anybody would pick wicker if they're not megabasing

Do you know about Wickerbottom's books?

3 minutes ago, Wawchik said:

That doesn't affect wickerbottom at all, it just creates an illusion of her being a swap character

Do you know that people sometimes play Maxwell, briefly switch to Wicker to make books and bookcases, and then switch back? This lets Maxwell access Wickerbottom's entire kit, more or less.

These posts are making me think people just don't know about this.