What if the Werebeaver and Woodie Were Seperate?

[Mario384]

In singleplayer DS, Werebeaver was a major defining characteristic for Woodie, and a positive and unique one at that.  It was fun to play as and allowed you to do a lot of work in short time, also allowing you to just use the Werebeaver if you wanted.  But, Don't Starve Together happened, and we all know that the Werebeaver needed to be nerfed...  But did it need to be this extreme?  Werebeaver, instead of being a semi-positive and semi-negative for Woodie, is actually now Woodie's major and only real downside.  Little attack protection and elemental protection, very weak, and all it exists for now is to punish you for not watching the Log Meter, and make you lose sanity and possibly health for it.  The only thing it can do right is harvest materials, which serves only to make you go back to Woodie again.  Though, it's not really a buff, because regular Woodie could chop down more trees more efficiently than the Werebeaver can anyway.  On top of it all, the killer sanity drain ensures you cannot have a fun time with the Werebeaver because in 1 minute all the sanity is gone and you're sure to be mauled by Terrorbeaks.

But, I understand why Klei did this.  It was to make sure players didn't try to forever-beaver and therefore not contribute to the team.  Contribution, is of course, the key here.  But what if it didn't need to be like this?  Surely there could be a way for this not to be so, right?  But, without the Werebeaver, Woodie has no nerf, so how could this work?  But then I thought...  What if Woodie and Werebeaver were two seperate characters entirely?

Now, I know what you're thinking, that's nuts.  Werebeaver and Woodie are both based on the main idea of chopping wood, and they should stay together in order to prevent two similar characters.  Though it's true, would that really harm the game that much?  Werebeaver really functions more of a multitool in all cases, I think maybe tapping into more of the beastie side of it would be neat.  Of course, neither character would need to go unchanged, but it would be great to finally give Woodie a little more than being almost a complete upgrade over Wilson.  I mean, he has a constant level 2 beard, has an infinite axe, and gets sanity by planting trees.  Only downside there is he can't shave, so maybe the developers can give him something new and interesting other than a nerf.  Werebeaver, of course, would need  some new assisting mechanics so he is a worthwhile helper around the base other than gathering raw materials, and maybe change his eating mechanics so he plays fair by himself.  I mean, Werebeaver as his own character would open up a lot of possibility, considering how much he differs from the other characters.  Perhaps some form of a dam structure that serves a unique purpose, or maybe give him unique base-building structures like a different form of wooden wall, the potential really is there for a character as fun as the one we had in DS, even if completely different.  But, I want to know what you all think, would seperating Woodie and the Werebeaver really be the way to go?

 

EDIT:  Alright, I admit that seperating Woodie and the Werebeaver is not a good idea.  Though, it still stands that the Woodie and Beaver relationship needs to be fixed, and the Beaver in general needs a buff.

[Mudley]

I personally don't understand why people is so bothered by the sanity loss of the werebeaver, Woodie is one of the characters with the easiest sanity to manage in my opinion, because of the gain when planting pinecones and such.

[Mario384]

Just now, Mudley said:

I personally don't understand why people is so bothered by the sanity loss of the werebeaver, Woodie is one of the characters with the easiest sanity to manage in my opinion, because of the gain when planting pinecones and such.

Yes, but that's not the issue.  It's that the Werebeaver in itself is really just a nerf to Woodie in DST, when it used to be much more.

[GiddyGuy]

@Mario384 Just don't play Woodie sure you'll miss his old quotes, and personality, but Woodie is hot garbage right now cause Maxwell is a far better wood gatherer, rock miner, and also has body guards who are expendable,

and he can get materials much more safely than Woodie can, and full moons? That's a thing of past with this dapper chap, sure he might be frail but you probably have a group to help you with that.

If you want old Woodie back just put in mod that turns him back into his old self.

[TheTraditionalGentleman]

I play as Woodie all the time, but I will say, it is a lot harder to survive as the werebeaver in DST. As long as I just get crawling horrors I'm fine, but those Terrorbeaks make it a nightmare. At least when it's full moon, because it's hard to constantly eat trees to avoid starving while having to dodge Terrorbeaks and possible treeguards. 

That being said, the stats you have after surviving as the werebeaver are actually pretty dang close to regular DS, so I think it technically works out. Honestly, what I would like to see (not story wise, but kind of just a personal thought) would be a form of Woodie that has no werebeaver. I think it spices up his gameplay, but occasionally I get tired of the constant rodent threat in the back of my mind. It honestly play as Woodie because I really like his comments, voice, and overall look. If I could get a character like Woodie in those aspects (and as long as we're throwing this out there, if he had dark brown hair that would be all the better) then I would jump at that chance, even if he didn't get Lucy. I am kind of woodsy myself, and so I enjoy playing as the rustic/mountain-man esc character.

But to sum up, I think that the werebeaver really is part of Woodie's character. If they were to edit it, my only real suggestion might to be to let the werebeaver eat logs to heal health, just so that it can actually survive all those terrorbeaks and have a bit more combat use. 

Yep. That's about all I can think of at the moment

[DarkXero]

No.

17 minutes ago, Mudley said:

I personally don't understand why people is so bothered by the sanity loss of the werebeaver, Woodie is one of the characters with the easiest sanity to manage in my opinion, because of the gain when planting pinecones and such.

It's not that sanity gets reduced to 0. It's that you can't use the werebeaver at all.

You can't chop wood when you have the terrorbeaks of 4 people following you.

16 minutes ago, Mario384 said:

It's that the Werebeaver in itself is really just a nerf to Woodie in DST, when it used to be much more.

"Much more".

Now he has less damage, takes more gnaws to do things, can't eat some stuff, and damage goes to hp instead of log meter.

He wasn't the best thing in DS either. It was starting with a log suit, a tentacle spike, and a miner hat.

But the werebeaver was playable.

 

So:

1) Make Woodie drop everything when turning into werebeaver.

2) Drain some stats from Woodie after turning back to normal. (-50 hunger, -30 health, -50 sanity)

3) Remove sanity drain when werebeaver.

Now he has risks and requires preparation, and the werebeaver is actually playable without having 8 terrorbeaks after you.

I can deal with having weak damage (0.8 * spear_damage in general, 1.3 * spear_damage to wood enemies; in single player, damage is 1.5 * spear_damage to everything), weak armor (0.25 damage absorption, with damage going to health and not log meter), slow working speed (stuff takes more gnaws), having insulation instead of overheating/freezing immunity.

But sanity is just extremely annoying.

[Mario384]

1 hour ago, DarkXero said:

No.

It's not that sanity gets reduced to 0. It's that you can't use the werebeaver at all.

You can't chop wood when you have the terrorbeaks of 4 people following you.

"Much more".

Now he has less damage, takes more gnaws to do things, can't eat some stuff, and damage goes to hp instead of log meter.

He wasn't the best thing in DS either. It was starting with a log suit, a tentacle spike, and a miner hat.

But the werebeaver was playable.

 

So:

1) Make Woodie drop everything when turning into werebeaver.

2) Drain some stats from Woodie after turning back to normal. (-50 hunger, -30 health, -50 sanity)

3) Remove sanity drain when werebeaver.

Now he has risks and requires preparation, and the werebeaver is actually playable without having 8 terrorbeaks after you.

I can deal with having weak damage (0.8 * spear_damage in general, 1.3 * spear_damage to wood enemies; in single player, damage is 1.5 * spear_damage to everything), weak armor (0.25 damage absorption, with damage going to health and not log meter), slow working speed (stuff takes more gnaws), having insulation instead of overheating/freezing immunity.

But sanity is just extremely annoying.

I like this proposition, though healing from eating wood would be nice as well.  It would allow you to play as the Werebeaver.

EDIT:  Also, maybe allow him to go into the caves?  I still don't understand why he can't.

[RalphKastro]

4 hours ago, DarkXero said:

No.

Pretty much.

[BlindGunner]

Definitely not. But Woodie as a whole could use a change, namely the fact that he shouldnt be outclassed by maxwell for wood gathering.

[FTR]

In my opinion Woodie is amazing. It's like better version of Wilson (and Wilson is already good character). And if someone thinks Beaver is weak, then well, you doing it wrong.

• Beard gives you a little bit of insulation
• Lucy allows you to chop trees quick + it has infinite durability so over time you save a lot materials on axes you didn't have to craft
• Beaver - basically it means infinite wood
• Amazing sanity perk, you will never have sanity issues

So, the best way I found to utilize Beaver form.

You DON'T use Lucy to gather wood, you use it to gather pine cones. Yes, ability to cut trees really fast is really just to get pine cones.

So you gather significant amount of pine cones and plant a forest (remember to plant trees close to each other and keep 20-40 cones in your inventory ALWAYS). Then you wait for them to grow, and start cutting with Lucy. You should turn Beaver quickly and then, continue cutting. Just quickly cut, cut cut in Beaver form, you should be able to take down at least 10-15 trees before Turning back into Woodie. This process costs about 100+ sanity, so you immediately plant pine cones to refill your sanity and "repopulate" trees. Next step is boring one, you just clean the area from logs and pine cones and dig out all trunks to make space for new trees.

So this way, in about few minutes (not counting time needed to grow trees), you end up with A LOT of logs. You can repeat process as much as you want at any time (if you have fully grown trees around) and you will fill few chests of logs in no time.

Considering how important are logs and sanity, Woodie is currently one of the best and most useful characters. The only people that complain are people that expected Beaver form to be some sort of badass killer and yes that's definately not the case, but I didn't even try this yet too much, perhaps he is not that bad to kill monsters but still, using Beaver to cut trees is best.

[BlindGunner]

16 minutes ago, FTR said:

but still, using Beaver to cut trees is best.

Hm... that's a funny way to spell Maxwell.

[Arlesienne]

18 hours ago, DarkXero said:

1) Make Woodie drop everything when turning into werebeaver.

2) Drain some stats from Woodie after turning back to normal. (-50 hunger, -30 health, -50 sanity)

Sorry, but I'm afraid you've lost me. On my servers, Woodie ALWAYS drops stuff when turning and when going back to his human self suffers the drainage of the stats. Is that your concept to add the following (as it were again)? Or you intend to state this is what occurred to him? Isn't this his default DST self?

[DarkXero]

33 minutes ago, Arlesienne said:

Woodie ALWAYS drops stuff when turning

In DST, he only drops equippables that aren't a backpack.

So your equipped axe, your equipped log suit, your equipped hat, all go to the floor.

I suggest he drops EVERYTHING he has in his inventory.

34 minutes ago, Arlesienne said:

when going back to his human self suffers the drainage of the stats

In DST, if you go from human to werebeaver, and then werebeaver to human immediately, then there is no hunger/hp/sanity change.

Well maybe you lose 1 sanity, because the werebeaver sanity drain is really high and it takes you a second to do the switch.

I suggest that the constant sanity drain when werebeaver is removed, and Woodie just suffers a hunger, health, sanity penalty when turning back.

[228]

Remove cooldown before digging/gnawing stumps in general and let beaver gnaw them in 1 click again.

[VexTheHex]

 I have a friend who plays Woodie about 90% of the time, and I don't think he'd appreciate his main getting changed much. I think Woodie stands his ground pretty well, and unlimited Beaver sounds broken as it'd remove the Night threat from the player forever. (which I'm sure helped Willow get nerfed)

[CarlZalph]

I feel that Woodie in his current state is a downgrade playing him when compared to Maxwell, and should have his shtick back of being the best wood chopper around.

It's unrewarding to manage everything with all of the negatives attached.

Woodie still should have the beaver form, but make it somewhat viable to be in like it is in single player.

 

The nerfs Woodie got make me wonder why anyone would play Woodie anymore with Maxwell around.

[GuyNamedChris]

I agree with everyone else, Woodie is in need of a buff to ditch his title of "Sh*ttier Maxwell"

[BlindGunner]

I'm with the whole "Woodie sucks compared to maxwell" thing but just noting that Woodie still competes with maxwell, and can actually get more wood on the ground than maxwell. (With three puppets at least, wasnt able to test four, but even with three they seem to get in each others way / aren't much more effective than two) Problem is that this is just one thing maxwell can do, he can also mine better than anyone, and summon fighters.

[GuyNamedChris]

2 minutes ago, BlindGunner said:

I'm with the whole "Woodie sucks compared to maxwell" thing but just noting that Woodie still competes with maxwell, and can actually get more wood on the ground than maxwell. (With three puppets at least, wasnt able to test four, but even with three they seem to get in each others way / aren't much more effective than two) Problem is that this is just one thing maxwell can do, he can also mine better than anyone, and summon fighters.

Yeah, but collecting wood as the werebeaver takes all your sanity for one forest. Trying to do it solely as Woodie requires a bunch of logs to maintain your form.

[BlindGunner]

1 minute ago, Chris1488 said:

Yeah, but collecting wood as the werebeaver takes all your sanity for one forest. Trying to do it solely as Woodie requires a bunch of logs to maintain your form.

Alternate  

[GuyNamedChris]

1 minute ago, BlindGunner said:

Alternate  

Changing form also takes up precious wood-chopping time that Maxwell's puppets do quicker.

[BlindGunner]

Just now, Chris1488 said:

Changing form also takes up precious wood-chopping time that Maxwell's puppets do quicker.

I've play tested this, maxwell gets a bit under 200 wood on day one. He's not limited by the fact that he can pick up wood while his puppets chop. Woodie gets about 200, but is limited because he has to pick up the wood.

[cezarica]

Dropping everything he has in his inventory so you would loose any source of light when turning back and possible have someone take or burn your stuff, apart the usual whatever is in the hat, chest (apart backpack) and and whatever holds in his hand, and some level of insulation instead of overheating/freezing immunity is just plain dumb. On the other hand a penalty when turning back instead of the huge sanity drain especially in full moon nights is in fact a good idea. Can't get log meter up and at the same time run away from Terrorbreaks.

Since Deerclops comes day 30 and most of the time it also happens to be full moon then good luck with maintaining your normal Woodie form and actually participate into the killing of Deerclops. Been there a couple of times and it's not a nice surprise..

If there's something I would like changed at him would be his sanity drain in full moon nights while in beaver form cos already have the log meter going down fast anyway.

[BlindGunner]

2 hours ago, cezarica said:

 

Dropping everything he has in his inventory so you would loose any source of light when turning back

 

Thats how it worked in single player in the caves/ruins. But yeah, people would steal everything.

 

2 hours ago, cezarica said:

a penalty when turning back

If they go with a flat penalty again (or something along the lines of single player Woodie) they need to buff the beaver. Right now I swap back and forth several times when taking down a forest.

[Mario384]

6 hours ago, BlindGunner said:

I've play tested this, maxwell gets a bit under 200 wood on day one. He's not limited by the fact that he can pick up wood while his puppets chop. Woodie gets about 200, but is limited because he has to pick up the wood.

Once you get a Shadow Digger, it's basically one more log for each tree, so in a sense Maxwell still beats Woodie.  Even if Woodie is slightly better at chopping trees, since Maxwell can do so at almost the same level and many other chores he's simply a straight upgrade.