The Beaver Isn't Fun

[Mario384]

I've recently been getting back into DST after a hiatus, and I have to say, The Forge is an excellent event for bringing old players back.  Yet, I've also been reminded of a thread I made a long time ago, which you can read here to perhaps get an idea of what this post is going to be:

 

Basically, the beaver isn't fun to play as.  I believe this comes down to three main reasons:

- Nightmares swarm you after two minutes on full sanity, and bar you from using the swiss-multitool aspect of the Beaver.

- The beaver has 0 self-sustainability; if he gets hurt, nothing can heal him, even teammates with proper supplies.

- The beaver isn't useful to Woodie or his team.  It's outclassed in every aspect of it's kit by much simpler alternatives.  (Maxwell, mostly.)

Unfortunately, the beaver hasn't been touched since they changed him to have grass-level armor and semi-waterproofness, and it seems strange what once was a major aspect of Woodie was pushed into the back of the minds of everyone.  DS beaver was fun to play, but certainly needed to be toned down for release in DST.  However, DST beaver is useless and not fun to play as, which certainly should not be where a character stands in a game where fun is a priority.  So, I think the fix is simple, remedy the three issues above, and perhaps we could actually make the beaver worthwhile, because where he stands right now, he just isn't.  There were some good ideas in the old thread, and Rezecib came out with his rebalance mod since then which makes the beaver more interesting as well, so we have a well of ideas to use, along with whatever can come of this thread.  Changes I suggest after extensive playtime as the beaver:

- No insanity drain.  Literally remove this and Beaver becomes much more fun off the bat.  It's not that Nightmare creatures are hard to fight, it's that they're too annoying and disallow you from getting anything done, not to mention that in winter werebeaver vision + snow = barely visible Shadow Creatures.

- Let him regen a bit of health in Beaver form from eating wood items, perhaps a percent of gains in the beaverness bar?

- Improve his use as multiool somehow.  Make it worse than Maxwell with his clones, but in turn it's more accessible.

 

Basically, all I want is if the good folks at Klei have some time between Forge and the next event, I think this is worth looking at.  Not to mention the other characters who still need tweaking (Willow), but please, consider revisiting the beaver mechanic and actually making it fun to use.  I'd also like to see if the current opinion still supports this, so I've put three question up top to mull over should you want to answer them, it'd help.  But for my opinion, I feel that Klei needs to make the beaver great again, after such a large fall from grace.

[Auth]

Yes. Back in the base game Beaver is basically just another asset Woodie has at his disposal that he can use in certain scenarios, whereas in DST it just feels like you're being punished for doing your job.

[Toroic]

Werebeaver actually has much worse than grass armor mitigation.  It also has a penalty to gnawing effectiveness for hammering and picking.  Even without sanity drain it’s a poor multitool form as a result.

[Sicko Hog]

It's pretty good for rushing ruins early on. You can go beaver to explore the caves, find the ruins, gnaw some statues with the gems you want in them, kite a few nightmares, and then go back through the destruction as Woodie and craft yourself a magiluminescence and some crowns.

Here's an example of that.

[Toroic]

9 hours ago, JellyUltra said:

It's pretty good for rushing ruins early on. You can go beaver to explore the caves, find the ruins, gnaw some statues with the gems you want in them, kite a few nightmares, and then go back through the destruction as Woodie and craft yourself a magiluminescence and some crowns.

Here's an example of that.

It’s a neat tactic, and I’ve done it, but afterwards you’re woodie with some ruins gear.

I much rather be someone else and ruins clear later, and kill the ancient guardian too.

[Rellimarual]

I don’t really get the craze for rushing the ruins. I can see wanting maybe two ruins gear items early on if you’re soloing Klaus (star caller & thulecite club), but most of the people I’ve played with don’t even care about ruins gear. And then what is there left to do in the summer?

[Mario384]

15 hours ago, JellyUltra said:

It's pretty good for rushing ruins early on. You can go beaver to explore the caves, find the ruins, gnaw some statues with the gems you want in them, kite a few nightmares, and then go back through the destruction as Woodie and craft yourself a magiluminescence and some crowns.

Here's an example of that.

Sure, that's great and all, but if this is one of very few true uses of the beaver, I think it still requires some changes.

[Mario384]

I hate to do the ol' bumpity bump, but I feel it's pointless to make another thread on the same content matter, and I also have another proposition from a while ago:

- Let the Werebeaver wear the hat Woodie was wearing when he transformed.  If the hat worn is a sanity-improving hat, negate the beaver's sanity drain entirely.

This would allow people to customize the beaver experience a little, and perhaps fix a good amount of greivances people have with the current beaver.

[CaptainChaotica]

And also, what's more adorable than a giant beaver wearing a hat? Not much, that's what.

Seriously I highly agree with this thread.  The original werebeaver was fun but left you very weakened afterwards.  Now you don't even get the fun part to begin with, and the log-eating is to keep you ALIVE rather than keep you beavered!  The whole mechanics were changed, and not for the better I feel.  Make the beaver fun again.

Also Willow.  For pete's sake, the mod I'm using brings her back ENTIRELY to her old self...as in it's based off of the old code...as in her face just up and disappears when she does certain gestures because they didn't exist in the original game.  XD)

...Notorious

[Palecwsmalec1]

It makes me sad to know that this is probably never gonna happen

[Mario384]

4 hours ago, Palecwsmalec1 said:

It makes me sad to know that this is probably never gonna happen

The following was said by jamesl, one of Klei's technical designers, in the old thread:

 

"How characters play in DST is something we think about a lot, and I really appreciate all the discussion in this thread. At the moment we're not trying to make all the characters equal to each other in terms of strength, at least until we are working on content that might require more balanced characters. In general, I think that it's important to keep characters within a reasonable spectrum of strength, but right now DST isn't an experience that demands the same attention to balancing characters as something like Dota.

That said, I definitely understand that balance is only part of this discussion, and that in addition some of you are saying that Werebeaver is unfun to play aside from balance. While we're not super interested in making sure all the characters are exactly the same strength, we're interested in making sure the characters are fun and interesting to play. We'll keep a close eye on all these suggestions and keep it in mind as we have character discussions in the future, and make sure to keep the suggestions coming. "

 

That's why I made this thread about how the beaver isn't fun to play instead of balanced (back when I PVPeaver'd a lot, balance meant more to me) because at the core design, it's what Klei cares about.  So, I made the votes, and people have expressed their opinions, all I hope for is that one day, Klei sits down and talks about the current state of the characters and how each one is either fine or needs adjustments, and then makes some changes, and maybe this thread and the old one can show them how to remedy the current issues people have.  But one can dream, I suppose.

[TheKingofSquirrels]

Yep. 

Things that need to happen:

A) Have the sanity deduction happen AFTER he transforms from being a human. Having distorted music from insanity + Werebeaver music is HORRIBLE. Having sepia tone plus the weird colour effects from insanity is ALSO HORRIBLE. This isn't just about balancing, his character is just unpleasant to both watch and play. 

B) Take away the Log meter in human form. It's, for lack of a better word, dumb. Why would he be eating wood in human form? 

C) If the price of being a Werebeaver is so high (pretty much a guarantee of going insane), then there should be a good reason for wanting to be a Werebeaver in the first place. Currently, there isn't one. His attacks of weak and his armor is crap. 

D) MAKE HIM IMMUNE TO WEATHER EFFECTS. How are you supposed to protect yourself against weather effects if you can't wear clothes. Seriously, this character is a broken mess.

Another idea that could help:

What if during the full moon, the Werebeaver gets a massive boost in damage and health, and is equal to what he was in DS (or maybe even better).

That way, it's not terribly overpowered. The player can't control when this boost happens and only lasts the night. Players would have to strategically plan attacks, which adds a nice game play mechanic.

I think this would be fun for PVP. Players would fear the full moon, because it's the night of the werewolf beaver.

Anyway, Klei, pls fix this.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Botaxalim]

More balance each chara, more diversity players play dst with different chara, more skin sold because more people play different chara

Profit?

[Mario384]

5 hours ago, TheKingofSquirrels said:

A) Have the sanity deduction happen AFTER he transforms from being a human. Having distorted music from insanity + Werebeaver music is HORRIBLE. Having sepia tone plus the weird colour effects from insanity is ALSO HORRIBLE. This isn't just about balancing, his character is just unpleasant to both watch and play. 

This is an extremely big issue with the beaver that should not be overlooked, especially in Winter.  The screen tint looks awful and hides Shadow Creatures entirely, making them practically invisible.  This also occurs at "Dark Forests" at sun-down during ALL SEASONS, thus going on that turf is a death sentence because you can't see Shadow Creatures at all, and you wouldn't believe how annoying it is.  Another thing to note is how easily the Werebeaver can fight Shadow Creatures due to faster attack speed than normal, but how long and tedious these fights become due the low damage makes it an annoying chore to fight the Shadow Creatures.  Also, the sanity gain is useless, as you lose it in 10 seconds anyways.

[Toroic]

1 hour ago, Mario384 said:

This is an extremely big issue with the beaver that should not be overlooked, especially in Winter.  The screen tint looks awful and hides Shadow Creatures entirely, making them practically invisible.  This also occurs at "Dark Forests" at sun-down during ALL SEASONS, thus going on that turf is a death sentence because you can't see Shadow Creatures at all, and you wouldn't believe how annoying it is.  Another thing to note is how easily the Werebeaver can fight Shadow Creatures due to faster attack speed than normal, but how long and tedious these fights become due the low damage makes it an annoying chore to fight the Shadow Creatures.  Also, the sanity gain is useless, as you lose it in 10 seconds anyways.

Shadow creatures are a joke to fight as anyone, I don’t think werebeaver has any particular benefits in that regard.

[TheKingofSquirrels]

19 hours ago, Mario384 said:

This is an extremely big issue with the beaver that should not be overlooked, especially in Winter.  The screen tint looks awful and hides Shadow Creatures entirely, making them practically invisible.  

Thank you