The beard is too overpowered but amulets are inconvenient and rare...


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So as I stand here with 6 effigies and a chest full of beard hair I'm reminded how overpowered Wilsons beard is. I would much rather play as another character instead but the bonus of the beard outweighs everything the others have to offer. But at the same time this is a game that could claim you at any time so I would call the effigy almost mandatory if you want to be able to take a few risks and have some adventures.

I was on day 73 with zero deaths and then all of a sudden I get 2 tree guards at the same time. Then it turned into night and I got a dog pack on me. 6 effigies but still. Had I been any other character that would probably have been the end of it all.

Yes you can start as Wilson. Build 2 effigies and then switch but that's not right either.

Suggestions:

Give Wilsons beard a different bonus in the game

Make amulets work from the inventory and not have to be worn.

Make effigies available to all characters but make the materials for them rare but still renewable.

Like maybe a rare enemy that only spawns during full moons that drop a piece needed to build the effigy.

Or an altar that slowly absorbs sun/moon light and harnesses it into a life crystal that can then be picked up and used in the construction of the effigy.

Or do away with the effigy all together and make the Red Gem come from the aforementioned altar and then you carry the amulet with you as a chance to avoid permanent death.

Whatever the solution the rate of generation can probably stand to be reduced as well. The current 2 effigies per 16 days feel a bit too frequent. Perhaps 1 every 12 days is better.

Edit: Some say Wolfgang is overpowered. I suppose he is to a degree if you made effigies first as Wilson. The increased stomach is irrelevant because he still has to eat the same amount but he can go longer between meals instead but then has to eat twice as much. His health and damage is only overpowered if you have Wilson built effigies.

Edited by Nathuram
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I don't think the answer is to give effigies to everyone and make the game easier, but to cap the amount of effigies you can create at one time to maintain some level of danger in the game. They are Wilson's perk so I don't think they should be given to all characters.

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If you shave after 8 days, and again after 4 you get 1 effigy.

Yes but if you wait until he gets an epic beard at 16 days you get 9 hairs from shaving. That's one effigy for every 8 days worth. I couldn't die that often even if I tried. I had to smash 9 effigy's with a hammer when it was time to collect my XP and I had chests worth of hair on top of that.

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All in all I don't much like the idea of having two ways of saving your life, and one being character-exclusive. Personally, I wouldn't mind just making amulets a bit more like the current effigies, and just removing those altogether. Or the other way around. Making effigies available to everyone (in a different way than now) and removing amulets. Although they still need to be limited to one at a time.

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Yes. And the amulets having to be worn is even more ridiculous. I mean if you don't want to die then you wear armour. If you wear the amulet instead of armour then you greatly increase the risk of being killed. You could in fact end up being killed *because* you wore the amulet.

So how do you use the amulet then? Do you equip it a split second before death? I never have that luxury in the game. If I have an extra second to spare then that is used to evade mobs and eating health food. Never have I found myself facing certain death with time to spare. Especially not time to Take off my armor which feels like the worst idea ever to survive a fight.

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if they were to make any character able to make effigies, i dont think it should be something renewable, i feel like a mandrake in the recipe would be a better idea (because they are difficult to find, and they are limited), and the recipe could be something like a mandrake root, a tallbird egg, an amulet, and some cooked pig meat or something like that. Also another reason the mandrake root would be a good idea in that: have you ever seen Pan's Laberynth? (yes i know its in spanish, i didnt understand it either) The mandrake root in that movie was used in a restoration-like witch craft/whatever it is called

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To be honest, as a concept, the meat effigy is kind of flawed. It doesn't really make sense that you need facial hair as opposed to any hair to make it, and you can't even use Wolfgang's mustache at that. I think they should just let the razor be used to cut off a bit of any characters hair so everyone can make a meat effigy, but make the recipe a lot harder to craft, like CaptKnuckles said, and then just give Wilson a different perk. It's not even his perk at the moment considering you can just switch out to another character after you have made the effigy anyway.

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I use my beard for camp fires.

Dang. You hardcore O.o

Anyway it has to be renewable since the game can go on for hundreds or even thousands of days. There's a purpose to the current system since the beard grows at a set rate which means you can't revive too often but its still far too often as it is.

And as mentioned earlier it's not even Wilsons perk since everyone can have Effigies once he built them.

Edited by Nathuram
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Dang. You hardcore O.o

Anyway it has to be renewable since the game can go on for hundreds or even thousands of days. There's a purpose to the current system since the beard grows at a set rate which means you can't revive too often but its still far too often as it is.

And as mentioned earlier it's not even Wilsons perk since everyone can have Effigies one he built them.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]1473[/ATTACH] Sooooo hardcore!

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Anyway it has to be renewable since the game can go on for hundreds or even thousands of days. There's a purpose to the current system since the beard grows at a set rate which means you can't revive too often but its still far too often as it is.

I agree. As much as this game is supposed to kill you, doing so simply by exhaustion doesn't seem like a good idea. If you're good (and careful) enough to lasts thousands of days, you should be able to do so. Then again, there ARE non-renewable resources, but I think so far nobody has ran out of them anyways, and the game is constantly changing so I can't even know what's it gonna be in the future with that.

And as mentioned earlier it's not even Wilsons perk since everyone can have Effigies once he built them.

And this, too. Not so much of a perk if you can share it with any character.

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I agree. As much as this game is supposed to kill you, doing so simply by exhaustion doesn't seem like a good idea. If you're good (and careful) enough to lasts thousands of days, you should be able to do so. Then again, there ARE non-renewable resources, but I think so far nobody has ran out of them anyways.

I have depleted every single resource and now I only have a small twig and grass farm.

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and the recipe could be something like a mandrake root

Mandrake roots to make effigies, I'm not sure why that never came to me before. It would make effigies a limited resource, which I would be totally okay with since they're quite overpowered at the moment, and I do not think that the player should have access to a potentially infinite amount of easy extra lives in a game that strives to be an unforgiving survival roguelike. Story mode could easily generate late-game maps that are free of mandrakes, ensuring that the player doesn't get the convenience of extra lives at a point when the game is supposed to really start testing the player's survival skills (and perhaps also make mandrakes rot away in the inventory so they can't be stockpiled for endgame).

I do think it might be best if effigies are made available to all characters and just give Wilson a different perk. Perhaps he can keep his growing beard, since that's a pretty iconic trait at this point, but his beard hair could serve a different purpose.

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What to do with the beard that still makes it a balanced perk...

Lights a fire at max light level for 2 days when used as fuel?

Or maybe it could be used instead of spider web in recipes to make tools and items with greatly increased durability. Like the gold instead of flint recipes.

Make a bug net that lasts for 40 insects instead of 10. A bee-hat that lasts 4 times as long. Fishing rod that lasts 4 times as long and so on.

Or make a handful of potion recipes that involve the hair

Cloning: 2 Hair

The hairs could be mixed with berries and then fed to animals in order to clone them. Instantly making a non-boss enemy split into 2. Not very overpowered but I'm sure people would find a use for it. perhaps slowly restore the beefalo population or some pigs in a village.

Mutation 2 Hair

The hair is mixed with monster meat and when feed to an non-boss animal or monster it mutates. Making it stronger, receiving more health and instantly going into a frenzy and attacking the first available target (Wilson himself being a second priority target when other targets are around)

The biggest problem with the mutation option is the need for new animal models which would be a huge bother and not worth the effort but perhaps a quick change in colour and size is enough to denote the mutation. Nothing advanced

Unimpressive Poison 1 Hair

Poisons a Seed or Berries and when consumed by a small animal the animal falls asleep and can be collected or killed. A simplified way for Wilson to kill/gather rabbits, birds and gobblers without the use of traps.

Paralysing Poison 4 Hairs

Poison dart that Paralyses a non-boss enemy for 10 seconds making it unable to move or attack even if gets attacked itself.

Wilson is a scientist after all you know.

Edited by Nathuram
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I was scared of tree guards so I burnt my forest down, sadly fire spreads easily. It spread all the way to my other farms.

Sounds a bit improbable, considering the whole "world" is of a decent size, for one single fire to burn it all down. Besides, even if it did, that wasn't my point. I meant running out of non-renewable resources from simply surviving too long and using em all.

Mandrake roots to make effigies, I'm not sure why that never came to me before. It would make effigies a limited resource, which I would be totally okay with since they're quite overpowered at the moment, and I do not think that the player should have access to a potentially infinite amount of easy extra lives in a game that strives to be an unforgiving survival roguelike. Story mode could easily generate late-game maps that are free of mandrakes, ensuring that the player doesn't get the convenience of extra lives at a point when the game is supposed to really start testing the player's survival skills (and perhaps also make mandrakes rot away in the inventory so they can't be stockpiled for endgame).

I dunno, still don't like the idea of making a craftable revive item with non-renewable resources. You should be able to survive potentially forever if you're good enough. You could say revival items aren't necessary for survival, and that's true, but then why even make one craftable? Just have them only found like amulets in graves, as a "second chance" item you get purely by luck. I guess the question here is if they want resurrection to be a real part of the game, or just a little bonus to have a second chance if you're lucky.

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Yeah the game needs resurrection. Even if just on a limited time frame. Even if you're on day 200 with a base that spans a whole biome. With bee landmines all over the place. The game can still jump out of the bushes and stab you in the ass just from dumb luck. Heck I had a spider queen pounce on me from a tier1 spider nest a short while ago. You are never safe. I get that it's supposed to be dangerous but you don't want to turn players into hermit crabs that just sit in their base sucking their thumbs out of fear that some real adventuring might lose them 20 hours of progress.

Making effigies out of mandrakes would be silly anyway because mandrakes are end game materials and it's early to mid game that you need them the most.

Heck who wants to cross their first swamp without an effigy?

Did any player ever survive their first visit to the swamp?

Edited by Nathuram
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