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Maxwell chopping vs Woodie chopping


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5 hours ago, Toros said:

I'm the opposite where I'm hugely in favor of buffing werebeaver.  Two major reasons for this:

1) Nothing added to Woodie's human form will be as cool or unique as turning into a werebeaver

2) Woodie learning to master his curse and use it to his advantage is both poetic and far more interesting for the player.

This. Human Woodie is a fairly decent and well rounded character, and mostly during mid to lategame you will rarely see the Werebeaver again since most of the chopping will be made by Bearger. I think Woodie's main downside is being boring from mid-game and on. Having a more mid-lategame useful Werebeaver form would prove much more fun, even if it takes some time to learn how to use correctly or exchanges sanity over power. EG: being able to wear helmets, getting better fighting/chopping/running stats over time after exposed to  full moons X times without dying, getting some way to get healed, etc.

Also think that Maxwell ends up stuck in his 75 hp forever, no matter how well armored you get you will always be "that guy" who just died because he got a mild lag spike, or looked away of the screen for a fraction of a second because his dog sneezed loudly. You can sort of go around this by riding a Beefalo on the surface, but in the caves there is no way around, and in long lived worlds you will always be "that guy consuming life amulets".

I think it's fair if Woodie is not the best overall logger, Maxwell has a huge penalty to pay for the title, however the beaver form could be useful in other late-game ways mostly to spice up the character and broaden his horizons.

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Maxwell used to be my go-to character, but I desired some sort of change and variety. I've been playing pretty much Woodie exclusively recently, ever since I got a rebalancing mod. It makes him MUCH funner to play. Seeing OP's video was really nice from my perspective, because it's really fun to just mow down those trees with ease. Plus, he was just showing the superior speed in which Woodie chops – I think it's pretty obvious that Maxwell is the superior gatherer for most people who have played the game enough. 

I also got the no stumps mod in my server, and a girlfriend, who is not a mod. I think. She helps a lot with the logs collection. One thing I have noticed from the switch is that I'm just randomly chopping wood, because I can. There are always random uncollected logs around the forests in our server, but we don't mind it because we have so much at base already. If we need more we can just take a stroll around the nearby forest and find logs ready for the picking. I don't have to worry about my shadow boys dying and replacing them, and I can even farm wood easily in the dark since I have night vision. The interesting thing from the switch though is that since I didn't have to worry about the vanilla sanity drop, and how weak werebeaver normally was, I just kept chopping logs because...I could. Even while I was fragging as werebeaver, doing the same damage as Wigfrid. At the end of it all we ended up having much more logs than we normally would because...I could actually play like a lumberjack.

Maxwell clearly has the upper hand on vanilla Woodie, which is why I've been playing him so much before. I hope most readers of this thread can at least agree: Woodie needs to be buffed. So he can actually have more perks that outweigh whatever benefit Maxwell can provide just in terms of collecting wood. I guess I'm just telling you guys to try out some Woodie rebalancing mods in the workshop – it feels like an entirely new character! I like it so much I drew a thing about it too. (:

 

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28 minutes ago, ShadowDuelist said:

and in long lived worlds you will always be "that guy consuming life amulets".

Funny story. In the current world I have going with friends, I think I've actually given away more of my amulets then I've actually used for myself. Although I will admit I'm likely using up more healing salve then anyone else...

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On 1/14/2018 at 1:36 PM, Mr Pig said:

I guess I will have to rebel against the people telling me to not use Woodie

When did anyone in the thread say "Stop playing Woodie" They're just doing the math to show who is faster at what.

And if this is random people in some pub who cares what they say just mute them.

And if this is one of your friends play with someone who isn't so critical in a video game.

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I'm wondering what people do with their mandatory time. I mean, if Woody or Maxwell are chopping wood, you should be happy to have someone who produce wood faster than everyone else. Sorry, I don't see a big difference between both, gathering wood isn't a race against time I think. Or are the forum members a big group of speedrunner?:shock:

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2 hours ago, axxel said:

I'm wondering what people do with their mandatory time. I mean, if Woody or Maxwell are chopping wood, you should be happy to have someone who produce wood faster than everyone else. Sorry, I don't see a big difference between both, gathering wood isn't a race against time I think. Or are the forum members a big group of speedrunner?:shock:

The thing is, what's the point of having Woodie for woodcutting when Maxwell can do it better and more?  Also, Woodie's big fun mechanic was Werebeaver in DS, and since the Werebeaver got butchered and turned into a Wereburger for sale at McNerfies, the fun mechanic of Woodie is gone.  He chops wood fast, that's it.  Now, I might be alone on this, but that's not very fun or unique.  Not to mention sanity is basically non-existant due to pinecone planting, Woodie just feels bland now, considering most will want to primarily stay away from Werebeaver.

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@Mario384 Yes I would say that, too, I can understand it that some characters are not as viable as others, and I agree that Woodie don't cover enough fields to work with, especially with his Werebeaverform. But the fun part is a subjective viewpoint as you said (sorry). Well I was refering to the importance of the difference between Max and Woodie.

I'm not skilled in modding, but there is a recently released mod about Woodie, making him better, but author says it's for beginners

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1270269796

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There's a very overlooked character synergy going on here. If you combine both of their strengths you end up with a very powerful, forest destroying duo. Woodie focuses on chopping, and Max uses a digger while he collects the logs and defends Woodie when he's a werebeaver.

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1 hour ago, Sinister_Fang said:

There's a very overlooked character synergy going on here. If you combine both of their strengths you end up with a very powerful, forest destroying duo. Woodie focuses on chopping, and Max uses a digger while he collects the logs and defends Woodie when he's a werebeaver.

I'd think they necessarily need to team up.. but if I play as one or the other... I like some company in case of large amounts of tree guards or nightmare creatures, specially considering Woodie is not heat/cold/wetness resistant and has no armor in Werebeaver form. 

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15 hours ago, Sinister_Fang said:

There's a very overlooked character synergy going on here. If you combine both of their strengths you end up with a very powerful, forest destroying duo. Woodie focuses on chopping, and Max uses a digger while he collects the logs and defends Woodie when he's a werebeaver.

Probably just as good for them to just go foresting individually, in that case. They don't really gain anything from working together other than Maxwell being there for Werebeaver defense.  Woodie's basically a really efficient logger.

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15 hours ago, Sinister_Fang said:

There's a very overlooked character synergy going on here. If you combine both of their strengths you end up with a very powerful, forest destroying duo. Woodie focuses on chopping, and Max uses a digger while he collects the logs and defends Woodie when he's a werebeaver.

Why would that be better than two maxwells?

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6 minutes ago, Mario384 said:

Probably just as good for them to just go foresting individually, in that case. They don't really gain anything from working together other than Maxwell being there for Werebeaver defense.  Woodie's basically a really efficient logger.

Defending werebeaver is only one part of why Maxwell is there. He's digging up stumps and collecting at the same time. His strength is mostly with his ability to multitask, and Woodie is good at exclusively chopping.

3 minutes ago, Toros said:

Why would that be better than two maxwells?

Take a look at the video in the OP. Again, Maxwell's strength is in his ability to multitask while Woodie surpasses him in the actual chopping aspect. Now I don't have much experience with 2 Maxwell's chopping (I've only done this once or twice before), but I do have experience with Woodie+Max. I could be completely wrong on this, but it seems like the Woodie+Max was faster then Max+Max.

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3 hours ago, Sinister_Fang said:

Defending werebeaver is only one part of why Maxwell is there. He's digging up stumps and collecting at the same time. His strength is mostly with his ability to multitask, and Woodie is good at exclusively chopping.

Take a look at the video in the OP. Again, Maxwell's strength is in his ability to multitask while Woodie surpasses him in the actual chopping aspect. Now I don't have much experience with 2 Maxwell's chopping (I've only done this once or twice before), but I do have experience with Woodie+Max. I could be completely wrong on this, but it seems like the Woodie+Max was faster then Max+Max.

It stands to reason that if Woodie is faster than Max, Woodie and Max would be faster than Max and Max.  The obvious issue with that plan of course is "why do you need more than one gatherer, and if you do, why not take the ones that can mine just as fast as they chop"

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5 hours ago, Toros said:

It stands to reason that if Woodie is faster than Max, Woodie and Max would be faster than Max and Max.  The obvious issue with that plan of course is "why do you need more than one gatherer, and if you do, why not take the ones that can mine just as fast as they chop"

What is this? The Forge? Team composition isn't really that important in the base game. I was just simply pointing out a character synergy, even if it is a bit niche.

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16 hours ago, Sinister_Fang said:

What is this? The Forge? Team composition isn't really that important in the base game. I was just simply pointing out a character synergy, even if it is a bit niche.

I’m not actually sure it is character synergy.  It sounds more like just two characters doing different tasks.  Anyone could shovel and collect stumps while Woodie chops/gnaws, Max doesn’t need shadow clones to keep up.

Character synergy usually implies something unique about the interaction (such as wicker charging wx).  Not just working together.

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14 hours ago, Sinister_Fang said:

What is this? The Forge? Team composition isn't really that important in the base game. I was just simply pointing out a character synergy, even if it is a bit niche.

If this was The Forge, Maxwell would quit two minutes in, leaving Willow to take up his role chopping trees, and then just when she's nearly finished, Wes dies and a boarilla comes charging into the logging site to kill her next.  Also, you have to add fifteen minutes to the clock to account for the time spent in the lobby.

But it's not The Forge.

And as was discussed about the omissions of digging stumps and picking up logs, we need a comparison that takes all factors into account.  A comparison that gets into the details of the full process.  A comparison that isn't just an academic exercise about idealized conditions, but that takes into account the material realities of the majority of players in public, passwordless servers with random membership.

So instead what we need is a comparison of what's faster:

Woodie chopping trees, digging stumps, dealing with the spider den a random Webber planted in the logging site, and then watching as all the logs get burned by a troll with a star-caller's staff.

OR

Maxwell's ghost haunting the trees and asking where is base, while nearby, Webber is chased by bunnymen?

Based on these conditions, I believe Maxwell is faster because sometimes the haunting acts as a chop.

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10 minutes ago, TemporaryMan said:

If this was The Forge, Maxwell would quit two minutes in, leaving Willow to take up his role chopping trees, and then just when she's nearly finished, Wes dies and a boarilla comes charging into the logging site to kill her next.  Also, you have to add fifteen minutes to the clock to account for the time spent in the lobby.

But it's not The Forge.

And as was discussed about the omissions of digging stumps and picking up logs, we need a comparison that takes all factors into account.  A comparison that gets into the details of the full process.  A comparison that isn't just an academic exercise about idealized conditions, but that takes into account the material realities of the majority of players in public, passwordless servers with random membership.

So instead what we need is a comparison of what's faster:

Woodie chopping trees, digging stumps, dealing with the spider den a random Webber planted in the logging site, and then watching as all the logs get burned by a troll with a star-caller's staff.

OR

Maxwell's ghost haunting the trees and asking where is base, while nearby, Webber is chased by bunnymen?

Based on these conditions, I believe Maxwell is faster because sometimes the haunting acts as a chop.

Most fitting end for a tirade about who is 5s faster at producing-and-gathering wood: Dead-WerebeaverMan-via-precocious-Terrorbeak or 2-Treeguard-hits-scrawny-ShadowclonesMan. I tip my hat to you, sir!

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36 minutes ago, Toros said:

Anyone could shovel and collect stumps while Woodie chops/gnaws, Max doesn’t need shadow clones to keep up.

Actually, no that's not really true. I've done that enough times to know that even Max with a digger can't collect the logs and pine cones faster then Woodie chops down the trees. Once Woodie is done chopping he usually has to assist with the collecting because there's still so much on the ground. So anyone other then Maxwell would get the job done slower because they'd be spending time digging themselves.

42 minutes ago, Toros said:

Character synergy usually implies something unique about the interaction (such as wicker charging wx).  Not just working together.

I still think it's a synergy. I consider a synergy to be using two specific character strengths/perks to achieve something other's can't do alone, or complete a task in a faster or more efficient way. Like I said, it is pretty small, and pretty niche, but it still uses the character strengths of Woodie and Maxwell specifically.

Although now you made me want to see a side by side comparison of Woodie+Maxwell and Woodie+anyone else to see how much time this actually saves. Likely not very much.

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On 1/14/2018 at 6:18 PM, Toros said:

I'm the opposite where I'm hugely in favor of buffing werebeaver.  Two major reasons for this:

1) Nothing added to Woodie's human form will be as cool or unique as turning into a werebeaver

2) Woodie learning to master his curse and use it to his advantage is both poetic and far more interesting for the player.

You have some fair points here and I see the reasoning makes plenty of sense but there are a few issues I don't think I'm entirely willing to get over.

1. While I'm all for buffing the beaver form's chopping capability to make Woodie better at doing his obvious intended job I am NOT in favor of buffing him in most other ways. For those of you who want single-player combat beaver boss back I personally say it makes no sense. Last I checked if you walk up to a beaver in the wild it doesn't run around trying to kill everything. Now given we're talking a WERE-beaver which you could argue justifies it. However last I checked the game requires you to eat wood, chop trees, and gives no benefit to drawing blood in the form. If you plan on having Woodie take a hit in hunger/health/sanity post-leaving the form it wouldn't be any less broken due to how any player that knows their salt has enough food to get over it, and anyone who doesn't will die so quick they'll never touch Woodie again.

2. While I get it being all poetic and such to use this thing to your advantage. Don't Starve was never known for poetic character development over the course of the game. Last I checked it plays on the fact that we got a rag-tag band of mis-fits who have some superb powers (the capability to chop trees inhumanly fast) and some secrets they may not always be willing to share. (turning into a giant scary-ish beaver) Woodie possesses many examines pointing out how much he hates the form and you can look to wicker's examine of a player in werebeaver form to see that he actively tries to hide it and avoids telling anyone that he has it. So in reality Woodie's character is built around hiding his beaver form and NOT mastering it by using it to his advantage.

Put in a slightly less confusing paragraph that isn't like my usual illegible walls of text: Make beaver a fast chopper to help Woodie as a character be better, but don't turn the beaver into an overpowered beast that takes away from the fact that we're not talking about a beaver we're talking about a Canadian guy with a talking axe who is honestly a pretty neat guy. (AKA don't optimize the beaver for combat)

That's really all I wanted to say here.

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3 hours ago, Mr Pig said:

You have some fair points here and I see the reasoning makes plenty of sense but there are a few issues I don't think I'm entirely willing to get over.

1. While I'm all for buffing the beaver form's chopping capability to make Woodie better at doing his obvious intended job I am NOT in favor of buffing him in most other ways. For those of you who want single-player combat beaver boss back I personally say it makes no sense. Last I checked if you walk up to a beaver in the wild it doesn't run around trying to kill everything. Now given we're talking a WERE-beaver which you could argue justifies it. However last I checked the game requires you to eat wood, chop trees, and gives no benefit to drawing blood in the form. If you plan on having Woodie take a hit in hunger/health/sanity post-leaving the form it wouldn't be any less broken due to how any player that knows their salt has enough food to get over it, and anyone who doesn't will die so quick they'll never touch Woodie again.

2. While I get it being all poetic and such to use this thing to your advantage. Don't Starve was never known for poetic character development over the course of the game. Last I checked it plays on the fact that we got a rag-tag band of mis-fits who have some superb powers (the capability to chop trees inhumanly fast) and some secrets they may not always be willing to share. (turning into a giant scary-ish beaver) Woodie possesses many examines pointing out how much he hates the form and you can look to wicker's examine of a player in werebeaver form to see that he actively tries to hide it and avoids telling anyone that he has it. So in reality Woodie's character is built around hiding his beaver form and NOT mastering it by using it to his advantage.

Put in a slightly less confusing paragraph that isn't like my usual illegible walls of text: Make beaver a fast chopper to help Woodie as a character be better, but don't turn the beaver into an overpowered beast that takes away from the fact that we're not talking about a beaver we're talking about a Canadian guy with a talking axe who is honestly a pretty neat guy. (AKA don't optimize the beaver for combat)

That's really all I wanted to say here.

I think your reasoning is very much in line with what the devs feel, and I disagree with both you and the devs for similar reasons when it comes to character balance.

The problem with any character focused around chopping trees is that eventually bearger and pigman minions can drastically outpace any advantage Woodie might have in that arena, and even in singleplayer Woodie's werebeaver form despite massive advantages in combat paled in comparison with actual combat focused characters with mid-high range equipment (log suit, tentacle spike is not very impressive and while singleplayer werebeaver doesn't have to worry about sanity, it's never been a hard resource to manage).

For what it's worth, I think you'll be "right" about the changes they'll (not) make to Woodie, but a lot about their character design decisions are poorly done for a multiplayer environment.  Woodie and Willow being faithful ports of their singleplayer versions would've been better than what we have currently, and if you're going to give lucy porting to Woodie's hand, it would make sense to have Willow do the same thing.

P.s. you don't need to eat wood as Woodie ever in dst.  You can use Werebeaver to refresh the meter.

The other thing worth considering is that Woodie is wildly unpopular as a character.  His skins are some of the cheapest of any of the characters and he's one of the most rare to see.  Some characters are popular despite mechanical weaknesses (Willow, Wilson, Wes), some are unpopular despite mechanical strengths (Wolfgang) but Woodie is neither popular nor powerful.  Design wise I feel that mechanics that are either obselete or largely ignored should either be removed or made more competitive with other options.  Woodie is the character equivalent of the bat bat.

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