Meat effigy over powered

[Captain Potato 11]

Right now it is easy to stay alive and feel absolutely safe with some ppl making up to 6 effigies. Not sure if we will be using up them easily in future patches due to unexpected deaths but perhaps the production requirement of meat effigy should be scaled up for every effigy made.

1st: 4 meat 4 plank 4 beard

2nd: 6 meat 8 plank 4 beard

3rd: 10 meat 15 plank 5 beard

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[ViVi 11]

I don't think it's over powered at all. it's an option that you don't have to use them. My 1st play through i quit at day 100 it got boring i had 4 effigy's there was no risk. so now i play with out any effigy's up 2 day 56 and i love the feeling - if i die it's over-

like i said it's an option for ppl to use everyone has a different playing style.

[mobius187 30]

There have been suggestions along these lines, not with increasing the effigy's cost mind you, but rather in curtailing its power. I believe someone once suggested that the hounds would be attracted to the effigies (as they're filled with meat) and attack them, destroying the meat effigies if given enough time. A great distraction if you're under attack, but an annoyance none-the-less if they start destroying them on you.

That being said, Wilson is the starting character and the Meat Effigy is a way to let the player relax a bit before moving on to a new, more difficult due to lacking Meat Effigy, character.

[rojvol 12]

I think the best possible solution would be if you can have only one meat effigy standing.

[mobius187 30]

I think the best possible solution would be if you can have only one meat effigy standing.

That's also a solution.

[501105 20]

I dont know, with the addition of the amulets resurrecting, meat effigies have become a lot less valauble. I find it easier to find an craft amulets than to wait for the beard hair to make an effigie.

[etherealwtf 10]

Hounds should attack more, the more meat effigy you have. Like suggested before, they should be able to destroy the effigies by eating them repeatdly. The effigy could also act like a voodoo puppet making it more dangerous to have numerous of them. Incmoing sanity could also reduce their OP.

Edited December 2, 2012 by etherealwtf

[TheFlirk 10]

I think the meat effigy's should degrade over time, as meat does. The more it degrades the less health you come back with and when it degrades 100% it just gets destroyed.

[Joyousterror 30]

I dont know, with the addition of the amulets resurrecting, meat effigies have become a lot less valauble. I find it easier to find an craft amulets than to wait for the beard hair to make an effigie.

Combined with meat effigys once you stock up on amulets. You pretty much can not find a single way to lose this game. Not much to staying alive when you have 4 amulets and 2 effigys and slowly stocking up on more of both.

[LavaPlume 10]

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Edited February 17, 2018 by GrowlitheAppears

[Captain Potato 11]

amulets are pretty useless if you ask me as the two times I have been resurrected by amulets,they spawn me where I died. ie. On the tentacles and on the hounds with little health and I die again anyway.

I get it now..if effigies are ever going to be created by wilson only and there are much more awesome and interesting characters to use then I wouldn't see meat effigies being exploited as much as most people won't want to spend 50 days to make a few effigies before moving on to a different character.If they do then they will miss out on playing interesting/more useful characters.

Right now people are building effigies like crazy because there are very little characters to choose from.

Edited December 3, 2012 by Captain Potato

[Subhazard 10]

It's not that overpowered. Beards grow slowly, and a lot can happen in that time. It's the special ability of one character.

Trust me, this game is going to get more brutal, let's not worry about balancing when we're still in early beta here.

You think they're going to stop at just hounds hunting you down? They're going to add a third measure to go along with hunger and health. You'll need your meat effigies then.

What this thread is trying to say is: There's not enough challenge in the game to warrant the low cost of meat effigies and amulets

[Toaster Fu 103]

Actually the third meter won't kill you, so no need for a meat effigy.

[cptCalavera 617]

But it will make things appear that might kill you. So yeah, need for effigy

[Subhazard 10]

Hmm. Perhaps this is a solution.

The smell of an effigy (since it's made of meat) attracts more hounds. Weekly hound attacks can almost double in size. The more effigies, the more hounds you'll get.

[NeedPants 18]

Hmm. Perhaps this is a solution.

The smell of an effigy (since it's made of meat) attracts more hounds. Weekly hound attacks can almost double in size. The more effigies, the more hounds you'll get.

That could work yes, giving the effigy a negative sideeffect.

We could also add a cooldown on effigiees, say 20 days, so u cannot build a ton of them unless u survive long without having to use 1. Another idea ive read on these forums, is to increase the cost for each additional effigy, more boards, more meat and more beardhair needed.

B4 that happens tho, lets see if we can make the other characters abilities a bit stronger (since they cant make effigies), so it doesnt feel like Wilson and Wolfgang are by far the "easiest" chars. Not taht this game is extremely hard, but there is a notable difference imo. Also i dont like Willow very much, and ive read that opinion alot. There are no threads going I dont like wolfgang, but there are threads saying this about Willow. She could use some love imo =)

[Subhazard 10]

That could work yes, giving the effigy a negative sideeffect.

We could also add a cooldown on effigiees, say 20 days, so u cannot build a ton of them unless u survive long without having to use 1. Another idea ive read on these forums, is to increase the cost for each additional effigy, more boards, more meat and more beardhair needed.

B4 that happens tho, lets see if we can make the other characters abilities a bit stronger (since they cant make effigies), so it doesnt feel like Wilson and Wolfgang are by far the "easiest" chars. Not taht this game is extremely hard, but there is a notable difference imo. Also i dont like Willow very much, and ive read that opinion alot. There are no threads going I dont like wolfgang, but there are threads saying this about Willow. She could use some love imo =)

The cooldown is the beard growth. You can't speed up beard growth. Why would you add an additional cooldown? Just in case someone finds a chest of beard hair hiding in the ground somewhere?

Effigies are Wilson's ability. That's what you get with Wilson. If you don't use Wilson, you can't respawn. If you use Wolfgang, you get to kick the ever living **** out of things. If you use Wendy, you get a nice companion at night. If you use Willow you get a mess.

Effigies should not be changed, the world will grow and diversify to make effigies seem balanced, especially if something can steal your beard hair from you, or there's so much danger out there that it's almost impossible to survive the 20 days needed to grow enough beard to make an effigy.

[NeedPants 18]

Currently u have enough beard in 12 days to make one effigy, if u wait 16 days b4 shaving u can make 2 effigies out of that. So 8 days per effigy on average (thank you cptCalavera). Thats very short and could be altered for balance purposes, instead of adding a cooldown. I understand u get effigies as ur ability as wilson, tahts not really my problem, my problem is that wilson and wolfgang have useful abilities that increase ur chances of surival significantly. Wendy and willow feel much weaker to me, while there is no reason for that. The game is not very hard atm, so u can still survive easily using each character, but u cant deny there is quite a power difference between the chars.

[Subhazard 10]

Currently u have enough beard in 12 days to make one effigy, if u wait 16 days b4 shaving u can make 2 effigies out of that. So 8 days per effigy on average (thank you cptCalavera). Thats very short and could be altered for balance purposes, instead of adding a cooldown. I understand u get effigies as ur ability as wilson, tahts not really my problem, my problem is that wilson and wolfgang have useful abilities that increase ur chances of surival significantly. Wendy and willow feel much weaker to me, while there is no reason for that. The game is not very hard atm, so u can still survive easily using each character, but u cant deny there is quite a power difference between the chars.

I agree with you that Wendy and Willow are pretty lame in comparison to the other two, but I think the world should get more difficult rather altering what we already have. I think it WILL get more difficult as the devs add more stuff, and effigy rebalancing is jumping the gun a bit.

[mobius187 30]

I agree with you that Wendy and Willow are pretty lame in comparison to the other two...

Say what? Oh no you didn't just dis Wendy!

But seriously, Willow I think works fine with her pyromania. Wendy is underpowered right now as Abigail is really a mixed blessing. When you get Abigail to behave she can kill bees, treeguards, beefalo, ect for you with relative ease. But just as often you end up running into her and getting hurt, or the need to avoid her means she's in your way. I think Abigail needs a smarter AI... one that actively attacks creatures that are hostile to Wendy (spiders, hounds, angry treeguards/pig men/beefalo/tallbirds).

On topic, I'm of the opinion there really isn't anything wrong with the Meat Effigy. It's a special perk for Wilson and it's made to make his life (and the player's) easier. Wilson is the Don't Starve trainer. As the Meat Effigy needs beard hair that already limits it to some degree as to how many can be crafted. If the concern is a player is making too many, isn't that also the issue that needs to be addressed? Why not limited the player to only one Meat Effigy at a time? If the player tries to build another Wilson could say "But I already have one...". If the player wants to move it there's the hammer, he can knock down the old one and build a new one. Or wait until the old one is destroyed (i.e. he dies) and build another one somewhere else.

Also, for the Amulet, all aggroed creatures really should leave the area (for hounds, maybe tallbirds too) or break aggro (all others) before it activates and resurrects the character. Otherwise it's fairly pointless.

[Benjow 10]

I think the best possible solution would be if you can have only one meat effigy standing.

indeed, It Should Also be more expensive, harder to and like was already been spoken here, it would be interesting if it would degrade with time.

after all, is an extra life in a survival game!

Hounds should attack more, the more meat effigy you have. Like suggested before, they should be able to destroy the effigies by eating them repeatdly. The effigy could also act like a voodoo puppet making it more dangerous to have numerous of them. Incmoing sanity could also reduce their OP.

would be interesting, but you can still protect your effigies with a square of trees tho

Edited December 3, 2012 by Benjow

[Sael 10]

Personally I feel that things such as the Meat Effigy should have a decay timer. No more than a week, no less than a full day. After all it is made of meat, which should decay. Hounds should attack it if they attack your "base" or when near one because they believe it to be you, effectively making it a decoy too.

I've yet to use one in my games. I don't like the idea of having an "oh crap" button. Same goes for amulets, just don't like the idea.

[jres80 10]

Why does everything have to be brutal or annoying? This shouldn't be a brutal game. It's a chill little time waster. It's not Super Meat Boy.

You want to limit meat effigy's usefulness you just limit it to one at a time. Why would you want to make it a pain in the ass to use? That's antithetical to enjoyable gameplay. Random unpredictable destruction of your effigy? Why even bother making it? It takes so long to grow beards anyway. It's like the turkey fix to cranberries: an annoyance instead of just limiting the number of berry bushes in the world, which would have been a simple and effective fix.

And at the end of the day, if you really don't want to use it just don't build it, or use one of the other characters. No reason to make sure the game is BRUTAL for everyone because that's how you want to play. Heck, maybe one of the other characters can be the brutal choice, with all kinds of weird random attack and decay timers as their "special" abilities.

Edited December 3, 2012 by jres80

[BlackWidow 10]

my suggestion is that the more meateffigy you have that more and dangerous mobs come out.

[jres80 10]

my suggestion is that the more meateffigy you have that more and dangerous mobs come out.

I like that. Not only does it provide safety for people who want it, it provides challenge for those who want challenge!