does wickerbottom worth it, without the books?

[loled]

We make new world with friends. (3 people) (i am the experienced the other 2 are newbies)

1- plays wendy, devoted the spider farming and cooking.

now the other two. I used to play wickerbottom, but we think to change roles (because the other guy isnt good at being the warrior/tank)

so the plan is, i go wigfrid the other guy goes in support with wickerbottom. Think is, he is always struggles with sanity, with other guys that can sleep even though we have tents, and cactuses, he barely gets by with sanity. So, using books for 40-50 days will be out of question, till we get enough farms so books worth it, or we get stable supply for jerkies so he can use the books at will. The question is...does it worth having a wickerbottom, if she will not use books in the near future? Or should i advice him to a more stable character?

[PanAzej]

Your priority should be to get Tam'O'Shanter for Wickerbottom in winter. Before that craft a Top Hat.

As for using books, your friend could use farming book once or twice to stockpile more resources before winter, so about day 19.

For sanity you can always make few beeboxes, so you could cook some Taffy later. Cacti is good too and you don't even have to prepare anything to get some (outside of armor, preferably).

Applied Horiculture is good for fast farming Twigs/Berries/Grass/Wood. If you don't need them, don't use it. Later you could farm lots of Dragon Fruits to make Dragonpies, but since you're Wigfrid you won't find too much use for them...

Birds of the World is good for Krampus farming when you use it with Sleepytime Stories (and some food). And that's for later game;

Other book is Sleepytime Stories (useful for either safe getaway from enemies or forementioned Krampus farming);

On Tentacles is when you run out of Tentacles (Tentacle Spikes ftw) in your world, also good for traps. Better for later game;

The final book is "The End is Nigh". You can farm milk from Lightning Goats with it and give WX infinite overcharge. Good for really late game, otherwise I don't think it's useful that much...

So, yeah. She's a pretty good character, but if you have problems, you could always pick a different one. 

[loled]

I know the values of wicker, she is my main. The question is different.

 

My pal is newbie, worths having him play her, even if i know he will do bad sanity management?

 

I dont ask on how to play the character. i ask opinions, if in early game he wont get good sanity management to use books, does it still worth it?

I know about taffies, i know about cactuses, i know about sanity management, but thats not the issue. My thing is, should we pick a wickerbottom, given the fact she wont use books for the first seasons?

[GuGonce]

If your friend struggles with sanity, then i don't recommend her. Aside from the books, she also has all of the science machine recipes unlocked, which means she doesn't get the sanity from prototyping.

I would recommend him to play as Wendy, as she loses less sanity at night or near monsters. Willow should be good too, but i never really tested how much sanity she gets from fires.

[PanAzej]

Uh, I just showed you what she can do and stuff so you could decide for yourself.

Well, then it depends how bad at sanity management you can be. If your friend uses mainly sleep rolls and tents to recover sanity, I recommend Wilson. Wendy is fine too, but her ghost will take a big chunk of it, so I wouldn't totally recommend her.

Is Wicker worth it without books? Well I look at it like this: You finally will be able to use them. You just need a stable base with instant sanity recovery items. If you can achieve that and you know you two will stick in this one world and survive at least the first year, then Wicker is really good. Only thing that Wickerbottom lacks - she can't use tents and bedrolls. That's all she can't do. Is this that big of a disadvantage for you/him? The choice is yours.

[Snowhusky5]

if he does play wickerbottom, then he will have a chance to learn how to manage his sanity without sleeping all the time, which is really not the best way to do it. Plus, he should improve at fighting too, at least against shadow monsters (unless his ping is 100+, in which case he will just die most likely). Insanity really isn't that dangerous in multiplayer, since one shadow monster is easy to deal with if you follow the formula (dodge then 1 hit on terrorbeak, dodge then 2 hits on crawling horrror), and if you get attacked by more than one shadow monster, other players can take the aggro for you. Follow that, and turn off distortion in the settings, and insanity is no big deal.

About wickerbottom being worth it without books, well, I would say no in a long-term game (in a public game the free tech level is super good though). He could play wilson for the easy beard hair and winter survival, or woodie, since he has really easy sanity management by planting pinecones and is a great base-tending character due to his resource collection abilities. As long as you keep some emergency restoratives for full moons and any other werebeaver transformations, he should be fine.

[Jonarobin]

Cooked green mushrooms give +15 Sanity -1 Health
I love these for sanity stuff

That and a top hat/tam o'shanter (or just tam) usually does it for me

[loled]

If everyone would stop going offtopic with sanity tips, that would be great

[werlpolf]

On 2/1/2016 at 2:55 PM, loled said:

The question is...does it worth having a wickerbottom, if she will not use books in the near future? Or should i advice him to a more stable character?

She is the only character in crafting the books. These books are very powerfull in PvP as well as in non PvP games. Everyone can use the books, also you as Wigfrid, who can sleep and use tents. The bigger the group will be the more it is interesting in playing different characters. Playing with two characters raiding the ruins, two Wigfrids are best <- my opinion. The 3rd can already become someone else like webber or wickerbottom.

 

EDIT: Besides she has more then double amount of sanity then Wigfrid (120 vs 250). But since you can read the books also with 0 sanity, this will be unimportant for Wigfrids, who are good in killing shadows. Actually this should be changed!

[GiddyGuy]

57 minutes ago, werlpolf said:

he is the only character in crafting the books. These books are very powerfull in PvP as well as in non PvP games. Everyone can use the books, also you as Wigfrid, who can sleep and use tents. The bigger the group will be the more it is interesting in playing different characters. Playing with two characters raiding the ruins, two Wigfrids are best <- my opinion. The 3rd can already become someone else like webber or wickerbottom.

 

EDIT: Besides she has more then double amount of sanity then Wigfrid (120 vs 250). But since you can read the books also with 0 sanity, this will be unimportant for Wigfrids, who are good in killing shadows. Actually this should be changed!

Pretty sure only Wickerbottom can use books unless there is a glitch I don't know of.

 

Edit: Unless I misunderstood what you were saying...

[werlpolf]

1 hour ago, GiddyGuy said:

Pretty sure only Wickerbottom can use books unless there is a glitch I don't know of.

ohhhh, you re right. Have tested it now. I just have looked up in the source and saw that books are readable and there is no check, which character is reading it.

As I can see it now in the actions.lua there is the check if the character is a 'reader'

ACTIONS.READ.fn = function(act)
    local targ = act.target or act.invobject
    if targ ~= nil and
        act.doer ~= nil and
        targ.components.book ~= nil and
        act.doer.components.reader ~= nil then
        return act.doer.components.reader:Read(targ)
    end
end

Sorry for the mistakes, only Wickerbottom and W/Maxwell are readers

 

Actually its interesting. Finally Wigfrid can give everybody its helmets and Willow its lighter.... But books are indeed very powerfull. If a Wigfrid would get a sleep-book XD

[GiddyGuy]

1 minute ago, werlpolf said:

Sorry for the mistakes, only Wickerbottom and W/Maxwell are readers

No problem I just thought there was a bug that certain characters could read Wickerbottom's books, not counting Wickerbottom, Also you are very smart to be able to code! ^_^

[werlpolf]

Thx, but actually it is not so difficult. You just need some time, then you ll get experience in reading

I explain how this code above works:

ACTIONS.READ.fn = function(act)
...
end

This means, that there is an action, which is part of ACTIONS. This actions is called READ and it has a function, which is called 'fn'. That function will be defined right away with 'function(...) ... END'.

local targ = act.target or act.invobject

The parameter act (actions) carrys some stuff with it, like the book, which is going to be read. The book is saved as 'targ' (target). If you read it from the inventory, then 'local targ' gets the book by act.invobject (action, inventoryobject)

if targ ~= nil and
        act.doer ~= nil and
        targ.components.book ~= nil and
        act.doer.components.reader ~= nil then
        ...
    end

The 'IF ... END' is a big check here. It checks, if the book (targ) really exists (not null) and if the reader really exists (doer not null) AND if the reader is actually a reader XD (doer.components.reader not null)

return act.doer.components.reader:Read(targ)

Only when this check is positive, the character will be able to read the magic books, else nothing will happen.

Characters, which are created with the code below, will be able to read books

inst:AddComponent("reader")

 

[LadyD]

I find Wickerbottom a very useful character in early game with multiple people. Especially if you are picky about where to set up base. I find that having recipes unlocked is a huge advantage at times. I use wickerbottom to do a lot of early game crafting for me and the others until we get a stable base set up. Things like backpacks. Having them early on is a big leg up towards collecting everything you need to set up.

Yes the sanity thing can get a little tricky in certain seasons but I consider that a minor issue. I hardly ever use the books in early game, so I can say that even without the books wickerbottom is a very useful character to have in a group. Although yes probably aimed at more experienced players due to having to know the work arounds for gaining sanity without having sleep up your sleeve. 

[Mday]

Keep an eye on your friend. You should be able to tell if he is low on sanity.

There are things you can do to help your friend.

1) Get silk early and make top hat for your friend.

2) Collect mushrooms and cactus whenever you come across it.

3) Build your base in the desert. Applied Horticulture works on cactus too so set up your base near group of cactus is a good idea.

4) Farm werepigs and make jerky.

5) You can force feed your friend with cooked cactus/ jerky if you find him low on sanity.

[loled]

Ok, i am back to answer my own question. We decided, to go wendy, wigfrid, wickerbottom (in the end, i play wicker)

We intentionally made wigfrid go crazy all the time for fuels and we started winter with 2 dark swords, we killed deerclops (me and the wigfrid) in 30 seconds, and i didnt get the chance to use my books at all. (When spring starts i will give it a go since i will have all time)

Just the tech advantage DOES worth it. I know, its not terrible, to go find some more rocks and gold for the alchemy engine, but we got a huge momentum (we had my spears till wigfrid could craft battle spears, backpacks, log suits and so on) before setting in a base, so we found base a lot quicker, due to not seeking many rocks/gold and it was a lot more time efficient.

We are in last winter day, we have shadow manipulator and still not alchemy engine (i will have to make it one of these days). My opinion is, crafting things before science machine and crafting better items just with science machine, give you a big boost, when you are unstable without a base and you try gather stuff to make a camp. In the long run, you will eventually make the alchemy, but having a wicker on the team, (if you rush for a base) can give you a 3-4 day boost. (Quicker progress). Of course this wont happen after 50-60 days. But for the first 2-3 seasons, its a nice thing because it enables you to rush for food, better weapons a bit more fast.

 

In the end you get the same gear and base, but having it a bit earlier, gives you an advantage (vs hounds, giants, in food management)