The Beaver Needs A Buff

[Mario384]

Simple as I put it.  The beaver is dying for change, and it's something I refuse to let go.  Klei, a while back when Woodie was reintroduced, you gave a Beaver with no survivability whatsoever, so that every second playing as him led to death faster than a Terrorbeak.  The community voiced their opinion on it, so you gave him a little more.  He got raincoat-level fur, grass-armor level protection, and that was it.  While it made the Werebeaver slightly more bearable, it simply is not enough.  The beaver used to be one of the great things about Woodie, but now it's reduced to something you use occassionally and try to get out out as quickly as possible.  Some of us don't want that.

I enjoy taking long runs as the Beaver in PVP and in DST in general, as a matter of fact, I main it.  My goal is simply go ForeverBeaver, and when I do that I really see the flaws in the character.  Here's a list of big issues:

- Terrorbeaks swarm constantly, and you have to constantly run from them.  Really sucks in a Full Moon setting.

- Your attacks are pitiful, and you deal little to no damage.  If the Werebeaver can *mine* boulders with his teeth, why does he do barely any damage with his bites?

- Not helpful in a team setting.  The beaver bar drains slow, so you can't do much work until the bar almost fills, making you wait days.

-  No way to heal.  Without re-becoming Woodie, you have to live with whatever damage you take.

Simply, what once was do-able is no longer.  But, here's a few buff/nerf mechanics which could be used to help the Beaver's case.  Also, I'm not saying implement all of these, but maybe a one or more.  Once again, these are just suggestions.

 

- Allow the Beaver to collect wood, and build a Dam structure.  I mean, he is a beaver, so why not?  The Dam is basically a bunch on logs in a pile somewhat organized, and the Werebeaver can add onto it for potential buffs.  Maybe he can sleep inside and regain health and sanity at the cost of the Log Meter?

- Re-add dropping your items on change.  This makes changing more strategic if you plan going back and forth.

- Add some Humanity/Beaverness mechanic which could buff one and nerf the other depending who you spend more time as.

- Add a way to heal, maybe by eating wooden things as the Beaver.

- Remove sanity's effects as Beaver

- Add stat drops when changing back to Woodie

So, community, what do you think, should the Beaver be changed from what it is now?

 

EDIT: Golly!  Looks like people want the Beaver to change.  I thought of a few others which might also work alone or in tangent with the others:

- Allow the Beaver to keep whatever hat Woodie had on.  This is possible because Beaver uses the same model as pigs and bunnymen, so he CAN currently render hats, but his arms glitch out.

- Add grogginess when becoming the Beaver or Woodie for a few seconds.

- Give Woodie a new nerf to compensate for the Beaver not being as bad.  (EX: uses picaxes and other non-choppinh tools efficiently, etc...)

- If Klei does not buff the beaver, remove any quotes about the Beaver being strong or having power and call it out for what it is.

- Maybe natural higher stats?

- AND DEFINITELY LET WENDY RIDE ON YOUR SHOULDERS

 

EDIT 2:  I made a mod showing one of many ways the Werebeaver could be rebalanced: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=697514302

[DarkXero]

7 minutes ago, Mario384 said:

- Terrorbeaks swarm constantly, and you have to constantly run from them.  Really sucks in a Full Moon setting.

I'm not a fan of turning back and forth either.

Instead of turning werebeaver, chopping trees, going back, planting pinecones for sanity, what I just do is eat twigs/grass/logs.

I chop really fast anyways.

[GuyNamedChris]

I think that Woodie needs his vanilla DS beaver drawbacks. Scrap the everlasting sanity drain, but make Woodie take a hit to his hunger/sanity/health, -50 each perhaps?

I don't think Woodie should drop all his items. This can catch the eyes of some noobs/griefers to steal all your things while you're in beaver mode.

Maybe for PVP balance, have Woodie keep his axe damage bites toward players, yet have spear damage toward everything else? And give the beaver log armor protection?

Also, we need a feature for Wendy players to ride on the Werebeaver's back. Maybe have a slight sanity gain for both players? Wendy wouldn't control the beaver, of course. Just an idea.

[Tumalu]

One thing that's not going to change is him sucking in combat now; I'm pretty sure that's so you can't just enter a server, turn into the beaver, and murder everyone regardless of bases and whatnot. The singleplayer beaver I'm pretty sure could do that no problem. Considering how Klei handled Woodie and his buffs shortly after being introduced, I can't imagine they're going to go back and make the beaver notably stronger in battle anytime soon.

As well, I think it's unrealistic to want to be the beaver all the time. You can barely do ANYTHING as the beaver but harvest some resources, even if they buffed it. You can't interact with objects, fight things, build things, you can't really explore since you don't get map completion... literally about all you can do is harvest resources, which he does at lightning speed, and is Woodie's main perk. That, and I guess his new perk for double length befriending wildlife, which is alright.

The sanity isn't a big deal so long as you're not trying to stay beaver longterm because you can plant 10 pinecones and be out of insanity (and 40 puts you from 0 to max even), which should be a total non-issue (if you don't have ~8 pinecones available even right after untransforming, you're doing something wrong)

Basically, the reason you have all these complaints with the beaver is that literally everything about him is very ill-suited to staying beaver long-term, but you're trying to do it anyway. Even after buffs it's still sort of pointless since you'd only be able to harvest resources and fight sometimes. Even in single player when the beaver was powerful and used logs as HP, there was little reason to stay as him after resources and some fighting was done.

[Rily]

I agree with you in some points, first of all, in the original game play as a beaver was fun, but in together is different, you can't enjoy it, you are always watching the log meter and the sanity meter, the log meter and the sanity meter shouldn't show at the same time.

I love the idea of woodie building something with wood, he is a beaver thats what the beavers do right?, and he should be able to help in some way, he can't help in other way different of chopping trees, how about a stronger attack, that's right he break rocks with his teeth. 

I don't know exactly how can Woodie be a better character but right now he isn't, at least not as fun to play as in vanilla game, c'mon klei, you managed to make Willow fun and fair, the other characters are fun just as they are, make a better Woodie 

[Faintly Macabre]

100% yes. I didn't play Woodie much in vanilla but at least he was interesting and it was fun to goof around as him at times. DST Woodie doesn't appeal to me in any way, shape, or form. You have to expend too many resources to take advantage of increased ability to produce said resources. I'm sure at the end of the day you're still getting a net gain, but it's just not fun.

[Tumalu]

Woodie probably could be a little better than he is now, but since he has a proper HP bar (And I can't think of a way to undo that without messing things up now that empty log meter is not transforming back) fighting as the beaver isn't really any better than fighting as Woodie unless they made it better than a standard equipped player character is.

I guess since his sanity goes in the dumpster so fast, it'd be okay to make him more combat viable as long as he couldn't really do much against nightmares? (If he could fight the nightmares, it'd be pretty silly. But making him literally unable to target them would be awkward... maybe? ) You only have a few minutes to fight before the nightmares pop up and make it necessary to transform back. But since he has a proper HP bar, you'd need a significant advantage as the beaver compared to normal woodie...

Trying to think about making him combat worthy quickly goes into "It's either still going to suck, or it's going to be -too- good." Maybe just make it easier for him to mass farm resources out of full moon? Full moon alone is probably enough though, since you only need to do it so often.

One thing to keep in mind is if you want to get nightmare fuel it's very, very easy for Woodie to go insane on purpose, get the fuel, and instantly get back to max sanity. Even Maxwell can't compare with his new lower sanity regen, plus he has to blow through the fuel himself. Woodie never has to worry about sanity in general apart from directly after unbeavering, which he can still fix nigh-instantly.

tl;dr, I do agree Woodie could be a little better, but I'm really not sure how you'd -do- it, nor do I think he's AS bad as a lot of people think. People go through so, so many logs. So many. Dear god. Have a whole chest full of wood and it's gone in a couple hours. The buffs listed in the OP are all focused mostly on trying to be beaver 24/7, which... I mean, it's a neat little gimmick to play with, but it wasn't ever really a great tactic and I don't see it being a thing. Several of the changes are actively nerfs to a normal playstyle, e.g. removing inventory and killing your stats.

[torauma]

This is a great way to buff the werebeaver, There's one stupid thing. why can't you use the map?

[DarkXero]

You can farm resources fast enough without being a werebeaver.

You don't even need to spam left click while chopping.

Gnawing stuff to dig it takes 3 gnaws. Just shovel it and move during mid animation to cancel the post animation.

 

That sanity drain is the worst. I would rather have Woodie lose all his sanity upon turning human. That's how awful it is.

[Tumalu]

I guess maybe if you buff the werebeaver offensively, give him no hitstun vs. players so it's not dumb in griefing/pvp, and return the stat penalty when you transform back in some manner so it's still costly to transform into him to try to do any battling? And you still get wrecked sanity as beaver so you only have a few minutes to fight before nightmares come to murder you (you can't do anything else with nightmares chasing you even if you CAN fight them, so your hp would steadily tick down- maybe actively be worse vs. nightmares or even unable to target them?)

That could maybe be finagled into a way that makes sense/balance. Maybe.

[DarkXero]

9 minutes ago, Tumalu said:

a few minutes

Assuming you are at 200 sanity. Then you have 2.222... minutes before reaching 0 sanity. Two minutes.

And if you want to turn back with half of your sanity back, that means you got 1 minute.

[rezecib]

I really don't see why he loses sanity as a werebeaver. That's the biggest problem to me. As DarkXero said, I would much rather see the sanity stay constant and then go to zero on exiting werebeaver form. The second biggest problem is the lack of any way of healing. Being able to heal won't make him good at combat, because he does no damage and has weak armor. Perhaps making him heal for a small percentage of the log meter value he gains from other activities. That wouldn't make it out of hand because if he focused too much on healing he'd turn back.

I remember writing about the beaver before, but there's just... no reason to be a beaver right now. It's bad in every way. It's not good for working, it's not good for exploring, it's not good for fighting, and it actively puts you in a hole in terms of your stats. So assuming we have to pick one of these things for it to be good at...

• Fighting: This could be bad for griefing reasons, going beaver right away and then murdering people. But that's not really the worst kind of griefing; the worst kind is destroying your base. As long as the beaver isn't *too* good, it shouldn't be a problem for a couple of other players. Another factor that could be considered is just making it bad at PvP, but giving it an edge in PvE. Players already have a damage multiplier in PvP that reduces damage, the Werebeaver could just have a larger one.
• Working: This would probably be the worst for griefing, and is the main reason why a lot of things require additional gnaws now. If we really want this to work, though, we can keep hammering and shoveling at a high number of gnaws (or just remove them entirely), while making mining and chopping very fast. Maybe even allow a harvesting gnaw in place of a shoveling one, so it would pick and drop the twigs/grass/berries instead. It'd be pretty hard to make that into griefing.
• Exploring: This one is mainly problematic thematically. The werebeaver is supposed to be a curse that makes him go crazy, so that's why it doesn't have access to the map. If it were good at exploring then suddenly when he wakes up from that "dream" he remembers everything perfectly? That just seems weird.
• Stats: Maybe the werebeaver could be... recuperative in some way? Because it's useless in every other way, perhaps it could at least give you some stats back. Maybe slowly heal, gain sanity. Maybe Woodie would lose max stats while human, and gain them back while a werebeaver, but he'd need something else nice to balance that out (in place of his current pinecone perk).

[PanAzej]

Make the Log Meter represent BOTH Hunger and Health, lower the sanity drain by 50% (or 25%).

Or don't make the Log Meter represent both of those stats... I forgot the Meter works the other way around in DST... Hm. So how about this: while eating wood as Werebeaver you restore some amount of health.

Also give him back 100% protection from overheating/freezing (Like in singleplayer).

There we go, Werebeaver is actually usable now.

ALSO, HEY.

WHAT ABOUT FREAKIN' WILLOW? IS SHE BOUND TO STAY IN THE NERF HELL FOREVER?

[CameoAppearance]

56 minutes ago, PanAzej said:

Or don't make the Log Meter represent both of those stats... I forgot the Meter works the other way around in DST... Hm. So how about this: while eating wood as Werebeaver you restore some amount of health.

Also give him back 100% protection from overheating/freezing (Like in singleplayer).

There we go, Werebeaver is actually usable now.

Freezing, definitely, since it makes sense with the fur. He can't wear winter clothes or start fires, so you have to rely on other people to keep fires burning for you. That's really bad with the sanity drain; you end up with terrorbeaks chasing you in circles around the fire, and your helpers have to fight off night hands to keep everybody including you from freezing. (This is also a problem in summer, I'm just not sure if overheating immunity makes sense thematically.)

It'd be nice if eating wood had a benefit other than turning you human again and getting you out of sanity drain land, too.

[or1239]

1 hour ago, Tumalu said:

I guess maybe if you buff the werebeaver offensively, give him no hitstun vs. players so it's not dumb in griefing/pvp,

Just saying, we should NOT balance characters based on pvp or griefing potential.

As in , not even take it to the equation when balancing something to the main game.

[TalZahn]

I actually really like Woodie for DST right now. Great survivability with his beard giving some cold protection, starts with an axe, so one less flint needed (and if hard up for sticks, at least you can make a campfire provided you got grass). Sanity is easy as long as you have tree seedling on hand.

Werebeaver on the other hand, is just what it already is; a curse. I always drop 20 wood before a full moon and carry another 20 on me to ward it off. If the intention was to make werebeaver the bad part of woodie and nothing more, then it is fine as is. If there is supposed to be some benefit to being a werebeaver, the benefits are small.

-Limited nightvision

-Tool-less mining/uprooting/breaking of objects

-...uh... he's a little faster too, right?

I think the werebeaver only needs one small benefit. Like mentioned, making him immune to freezing would be enough. Woodie could sacrifice his sanity for emergency warmth. Don't like the idea of overheat protection...

Or maybe... just let werebeaver wear hats (and their included effects). There, he can have armor, protection from the sun a little, reduce his sanity drain, increased light i suppose, or what have you. But he can't switch hats without going back to woodie. Balance.

[AnonymousKoala]

4 hours ago, Chris1488 said:

I think that Woodie needs his vanilla DS beaver drawbacks. Scrap the everlasting sanity drain, but make Woodie take a hit to his hunger/sanity/health, -50 each perhaps?

I don't think Woodie should drop all his items. This can catch the eyes of some noobs/griefers to steal all your things while you're in beaver mode.

Maybe for PVP balance, have Woodie keep his axe damage bites toward players, yet have spear damage toward everything else? And give the beaver log armor protection?

Also, we need a feature for Wendy players to ride on the Werebeaver's back. Maybe have a slight sanity gain for both players? Wendy wouldn't control the beaver, of course. Just an idea.

I agree with all of the above.

3 hours ago, rezecib said:

I really don't see why he loses sanity as a werebeaver. That's the biggest problem to me. As DarkXero said, I would much rather see the sanity stay constant and then go to zero on exiting werebeaver form. The second biggest problem is the lack of any way of healing. Being able to heal won't make him good at combat, because he does no damage and has weak armor. Perhaps making him heal for a small percentage of the log meter value he gains from other activities. That wouldn't make it out of hand because if he focused too much on healing he'd turn back.

I remember writing about the beaver before, but there's just... no reason to be a beaver right now. It's bad in every way. It's not good for working, it's not good for exploring, it's not good for fighting, and it actively puts you in a hole in terms of your stats. So assuming we have to pick one of these things for it to be good at...

• Fighting: This could be bad for griefing reasons, going beaver right away and then murdering people. But that's not really the worst kind of griefing; the worst kind is destroying your base. As long as the beaver isn't *too* good, it shouldn't be a problem for a couple of other players. Another factor that could be considered is just making it bad at PvP, but giving it an edge in PvE. Players already have a damage multiplier in PvP that reduces damage, the Werebeaver could just have a larger one.
• Working: This would probably be the worst for griefing, and is the main reason why a lot of things require additional gnaws now. If we really want this to work, though, we can keep hammering and shoveling at a high number of gnaws (or just remove them entirely), while making mining and chopping very fast. Maybe even allow a harvesting gnaw in place of a shoveling one, so it would pick and drop the twigs/grass/berries instead. It'd be pretty hard to make that into griefing.
• Exploring: This one is mainly problematic thematically. The werebeaver is supposed to be a curse that makes him go crazy, so that's why it doesn't have access to the map. If it were good at exploring then suddenly when he wakes up from that "dream" he remembers everything perfectly? That just seems weird.
• Stats: Maybe the werebeaver could be... recuperative in some way? Because it's useless in every other way, perhaps it could at least give you some stats back. Maybe slowly heal, gain sanity. Maybe Woodie would lose max stats while human, and gain them back while a werebeaver, but he'd need something else nice to balance that out (in place of his current pinecone perk).

Recuprative should be a cool idea. Imagine becoming werebeaver to heal up. Also the fact that it would make him a bit more combat capable since he'll self heal. 

2 hours ago, PanAzej said:

Make the Log Meter represent BOTH Hunger and Health, lower the sanity drain by 50% (or 25%).

Or don't make the Log Meter represent both of those stats... I forgot the Meter works the other way around in DST... Hm. So how about this: while eating wood as Werebeaver you restore some amount of health.

Also give him back 100% protection from overheating/freezing (Like in singleplayer).

There we go, Werebeaver is actually usable now.

ALSO, HEY.

WHAT ABOUT FREAKIN' WILLOW? IS SHE BOUND TO STAY IN THE NERF HELL FOREVER?

^^This should also be nice

AND WE DO NOT MENTION WILLOW SHE'S TOO BAD

[GiddyGuy]

I have a good way to fix Woodie for all of you...Just don't.  (I can't remember the last time I played Woodie in DST)

4 hours ago, Chris1488 said:

Also, we need a feature for Wendy players to ride on the Werebeaver's back. Maybe have a slight sanity gain for both players? Wendy wouldn't control the beaver, of course. Just an idea.

I still don't understand why this isn't a feature, if they removed/or lessened the sanity drain from werebeaver I'd totes just play Woodie to be a taxi cab.

50 minutes ago, TalZahn said:

I actually really like Woodie for DST right now.

Omg are you comedian. xD

But no really Maxwell is far superior than Woodie for wood gathering his shadows can chop trees while he takes down a spider nest and he doesn't even have to waste wood by eating, he also gains sanity from doing nothing.

And nightmare fuel farming? He can just lock himself in a insane state while his friends help him stay protected, and he can just get rid of a useless shadow to unlock himself from the nightmare mode, and bit of pumpkin cookies.

 

[hyiltiz]

I literally can't see much point in using Woodie or Willow atm.

[Mario384]

Yes, yes!  Very good discussion so far, keep it coming!  Maybe Klei will see some of the ideas on here and take them into account!  Maybe poor Woodie won't just be a worse Maxwell soon enough!

[Tumalu]

Oh wait, werebeaver has -two- minutes before 0 sanity? I thought it was 3~3.5, which is enough time to actually get some stuff done. >_> Yeah, if nothing else it should drain a -little- slower so you have time to get some work in... as well as more time to transform back before nightmares.

Base-form Woodie has superlog harvest, free sanity, and long befriending time on pigs/bunnies/rock lobsters, and a little extra winter protection. With two of those having been added for DST to "replace" beavermode being useful. Hrm.

Also, I wouldn't call Woodie a "worse maxwell". Even in base form he harvests wood as fast as maxwell and one logger goon, faster in your bouts of beaverness (Which is pretty easy to fastswap to and back one time in a logging session, at least.) And whilst Maxwell's sanity doesn't usually go down, Woodie's way better at getting it back, and can force it downwards on purpose when desired just like Maxwell- except none of this junk requires burning nightmare fuel to do so. And imo Maxwell's other goons sort of suuuuck, making it hard to justify playing with half max hp...

Okay, yeah, beaver is awful, but I think human Woodie is still a better character than Maxwell. Those shadow duelists don't feel worth losing half my hp for in the slightest (anything you actually need help fighting will slaughter them with their low hp, rip ruins help), and you can hardly even use night armor worth a damn if you have two of 'em.

[t0panka]

So are we changing all characters to Wilson now?

Woodie is great as is in my opinion. I have few friends who are playing Woodie exclusively and i really like to play with them. Getting nightmare fuel with DST spawning of nightmares is pain in the ass. You can be insane 24/7 and get like 1-2 nightmares everyday and sometimes not even that. With Woodie though getting fuel is really easy and that means shadow gear for days! Also since this is dsTOGETHER how about let your teammate kill nightmares while Woodie chopping wood? What OP is suggesting is ridiculous and destroying ANY challenge for Woodie. If you have problem with kiting Terrorbeaks then that is not a Woodie problem! Remember that Beaver is CURSE not "fighting mode"!

ALSO

"Don’t Starve is an uncompromising wilderness survival game full of science and magic"

[Pruinae]

I have the same feeling of playing with Wes when I play with Woodie. The difference is that Wes is better because of the balloons

 

[TalZahn]

7 hours ago, GiddyGuy said:

And nightmare fuel farming? He can just lock himself in a insane state while his friends help him stay protected, and he can just get rid of a useless shadow to unlock himself from the nightmare mode, and bit of pumpkin cookies.

Yeah... See that's the difference. Maxwell needs to be protected. Woodie doesn't. Woodie isn't about being better than others, it's about self-sustainability. He's got the health to take a hit, fast wood gathering that DOESN'T require wasting nightmare fuel, flint or old flint-based tools, and a reliable way to farm nightmares himself.

When I play public servers, there is usually people that have a hard time without ANY help whatsoever. That gets annoying after awhile. Yes it is 'together' for a reason, but it's nice to have people that don't need as much maintenance. As long as you know is functions, Woodie makes it easier to be low-maintenance. Even the full moon isn't that bad as long as you prepare.

Not saying he doesn't need any buffs either. I just happen to love how easy he is to keep alive while also able to gather resources fast. I'd welcome a few more things, but probably should be a light touch.

[Maslak]

 Well, Maxwell is better in harvesting resources than Woodie.
Woodie is good for... Pine cones/birchnuts farming. You can chop trees using lucy, eat some of the logs so there won't be much more of them compared to other characters' possibilities. But you are left with lots of tree seeds, which is nice for planting stack or two and then igniting those lil' trees for lots of charcoal. This "abbility" is a joke, of course, it's almost useless.
 I play Woodie only if there is a winter and I'm not thinking about longer playing, just some nice support for players, that's all. But now I'm not sure if I'm really supporting them or just stayin' alive.