Search the Community

The hunger drain was really the main reason players hated her. Now it seems like none cares too much because it's a non-issue almost, despite catapults staying as is? The spotlight mechanic was tuned to work better for multiple players, but remember that the character isn't really desirable to play as still, unless the faster crafting is something that you would constantly want to take advantage of, but is that worth not picking a more powerful character? For mega base building? That's very situational even then, no? She seems very much like a pick-and-drop character still, just more bearable to play with. The 5 special craftables as we have seen are a bit problematic for a multiplayer environment because of this, so I really think mechanic-based approach rather than entirely craftables approach for character reworks should be done, and in a way that's quite significant. I've proposed my suggestions before for her character. They are not really of my own, but I do think they would be great for her character. 1) Crafting with half the costs 2) Tape to repair weapons and armor 3) Faster harvesting along with the faster crafting 4) Slower crafting, slower movement speed, slower harvesting and crafting with normal costs when hungry 5) Increased hunger rate rather than a set hunger point drain with a minute cooldown? But what do others really think right now? Any changes that you would want to tune Winona more? What do you think of the suggested above?

allow winona to subdue other players with her tape, so they can't move on their own and they have to be fed and be carried around by her to survive they can still chat so they can beg for their release, but winona can also tape their mouth shut and all that can come out is mmmmmppffhh mmffph

Was watching the Next of Kin short and decided to get a closer look at the portal. I noticed a round platform next to it, and it reminded me of Winona's quote for the Divining Rod Holder: "Just like in the bossman's workshop." I really do believe that this figure is Wagstaff, and that this is his office. And this being the holder would be proof of that. But I know that it doesn't look exactly like it in-game, but then it's a curious part of the machine. I wonder what you all would think of it. Here's a screenie: It's the round flat thing on the lower left of the screenshot ^^^^^

Seen diverse opinions about the new character update and having that as basing, here's an idea: -Only Winona’s Catapult, Spotlight, Generator & G.E.M.erator cost hunger. -Other things created with her don't suffer this penalty. With this, we avoid a "nerfing" for the catapults and the posibility of abuse him (aka create 20 or more catapults with no effort in few days), at the same time. We fix the constant issue of having hunger by crafting even the most simplest item (Ropes, Boards, etc). And finally, this allow a more friendly path to begginers player (who just want make a football helmet and a spear, for now) or experienced ones with not much interest of use exclusively a lot of catapults.

I was looking forward to Winona being potentially a nice character, as before she was quite lackluster. Unfortunately from the get go, it was clear she still has glaring faults that sink her to a lower tier: The hunger loss per craft is too crippling at 5 per craft. With the amount of crafting you do in the early game for every little thing, new tools, light sources, refining materials to go into larger crafts, you lose more hunger than a Wolfgang by comparison. If this were 2.5 hunger lost per craft, It would still be a decent penalty, but as it stands Winona's the biggest food vacuum right now. With the her slower crafting kicking in at 50 hunger, it only takes 18 crafts to drain 100 hunger. Paired with the standard hunger loss over time, it really is a little bit of an issue. There's also the possibility of increasing her hunger gauge from 150-200 as an alternative, but with that you run the risk of her having higher hunger overall when not crafting anything in the mid to late game. It's better to nerf the hunger loss per craft in my opinion. Her Generator not being able to be turned off, this is something many find to be a large issue as well. It will drain within a day quite easily when hooked up to a meager 2 catapults while not really being used. I've seen that there is slight worry that it would be "too good" if you were able to turn it on/off or have an Emergency Mode, but I must disagree, for reasons I'll cover below with the Catapult itself. On top of that, it costs Nitre or Gems, making it quite difficult to refuel in the early game (Nitre isn't as plentiful as Rocks [materials] are, it could possibly use a buff to 3 Nitre dropped from each normal rock mining point, since Winona will be using so much of it now). There is also the option of making a Charcoal powered generator. Above all though, an off switch would likely be the best option. Edit: There's been pretty concrete proof that the catapults are pretty good vs Bosses, so if they were more accurate, that may make them pretty OP. The only buff they might actually need is not to attack allied fences/walls. The Catapult itself is sadly also lackluster, mostly due to its lack of accuracy. I know that it's meant to be a "power in numbers" type of unit, but the tracking on it isn't stellar for faster targets. It will airball on hounds / spiders that are chasing a player quite often, and might even be the primary target for the mob if there are no fences around it (Frog Rain possibly will be the largest destruction of Catapults). Rocks go into a fair amount of things early game for everyone on the server, so at 15 rocks per unit for something that isn't terribly accurate, I can't really justify making any over Tooth Traps- especially with how much fuel it drains. The damage it does is the same as a Battle Spear, which is honest damage that I'm fine with, but it's still pretty inaccurate- since it doesn't end up getting a lot of direct hits, it might need a Splash Radius buff. There is a lot of promise in Winona now, but in worrying about her becoming Overpowered, she's sadly still Underpowered. Clearly we don't want massive buffs that will break the game, but just a couple nudges here and there that will make her more balanced overall while still having her downsides. Cheers for reading, as well as making such a fun game and keeping it updated, Klei. I hope that my input helps to make Winona a more well rounded character!

To begin, I don't often post here so I may be mostly unknown. I'm a small time content creator with over 3000 hours in single player and over 800 hours in solo DST. Hopefully there are a couple of people here who can attest to my experience and skill in DS so that this doesn't come across as a rant from someone who doesn't know the game well. I am someone who has always loved Don't Starve as a series and usually I trust Klei and the choices they make. In recent times though, it's become more and more clear that the designers do not understand how to balance characters. Whether it be the new characters in Hamlet or these new refreshes in DST. So first, let's look at the mistakes made with Winona's balance along with the horrible precedence that they set and then we'll dive deeper into the general idea of how to balance a character in Don't Starve in hopes that the future reworks do not miss the mark as hard as Winona's did. First, Winona's identity is that she is a better builder. Tying her perk of building things faster to hunger doesn't even make sense, but worse than that, at a certain point she crafts even slower than other characters at similar hunger levels. So while Wolfgang is not a builder, when he's starving and in wimpy form he somehow builds twice as fast as an equally hungry Winona..? This just conflicts with her entire character. Due to the huge cost of building at all with 5 hunger per craft, she has essentially become the worst builder in the entire cast. Consider how a single drying rack costs Winona 20 hunger to craft. If I were balancing her, the hunger cost to craft would be entirely removed again. If a downside must be tied to her crafting speed, then I would want it to be an interesting downside. Something like, she sweats and builds up her water meter, or she becomes more vulnerable to outside temperature, causing her to freeze faster in winter and heat up faster in summer. One thing is for sure though, I absolutely would not play her in a megabase anymore. This downside is cripplingly annoying. The time spent farming and feeding her to keep her perk active will far outweigh the insignificant time she saves while crafting. So, we've established that Winona is not useful to play anymore for long periods of time due to the time and resources wasted by her downside. So what about her new upsides? She can now build two unique things; a catapult and a light. The light is fine if only a bit uninspired, and honestly, an invention like this made from random resources found in nature seems more like it'd be up Wilson's alley as a scientist than Winona's as a builder. But, the real meat of this update is how insanely strong the catapults are. A 10 minute solo kill of misery toadstool? Indescribably insane. If this level of power was worth using then Winona would definitely be good right? Sadly, anyone can use her catapult. Because of this, why would anyone play around the downsides of Winona for long periods when they could instead change into Winona, build as many catapults as they want in the late game, then change into a "better" character? This really shows how Klei does not understand the balance in their game anymore. You may as well replace Winona's picture with a catapult, because that's the only reason anyone would pick her, and even then, it will only be for short periods to hoard her "unique" item, and then just utilize it on stronger characters. This really leads into a good discussion of balance though. Why can a character be useless while also having such a powerful "unique" item? Because it's not truly unique if she can just craft it and give it away. So let's look at the general state of balance with just a few key characters so that this post doesn't turn into so huge a post that no one actually reads it. Wickerbottom: Wickerbottom is in a tier of her own. While in single player she is generally considered to be part of the power 3, in DST, she stands alone as the unquestionable queen of multiplayer. Her stats are nothing amazing, but she has several powerful (actually) unique items that only herself and Maxwell can use. Using her books, she also becomes the best partner for pretty much any other character in the game, especially the next 3 strongest (WX, Wolfgang, and Maxwell.) because she can either augment their unique strengths or entirely remove their weaknesses helping them also transcend to the level of gods. Wolfgang: Wolfgang is in the power three that exists below Wickerbottom. His perk of dealing double damage is extremely helpful and makes fighting bosses much safer and faster. When comboing with Wickerbottom, his hunger and sanity downsides can both be fixed trivially easy via Applied Horticulture. So, what he uniquely brings to the team is that he essentially always deals double damage and moves 10% faster and has the second highest stats. He's a safe and powerful character and he's a big pile of stats. WX-78: WX is also in the power three. WX is purely stats on a stick by himself; boasting the highest stats in the game with an insane 400 hp. He also helps a team early on by being able to eat the mostly spoiled food at full value while saving fresh food for his teammates. His combo with Wickerbottom comes from her book the End if Nigh. Via reading this book Wickerbottom can intentionally overcharge WX to become an unholy broken machine. While overcharged, WX moves faster, emits his own light field so he is immune to darkness, and is immune to freezing in Winter. This version of WX is self evidently broken and cleanly earns him a spot in the power three as the safest to play character who is also the most efficient explorer thanks to controlled overcharge. Maxwell: Maxwell is the final member of the power three. His stats are well below average, having half the hp of most of the cast. He makes up for this with his shadow partners. Maxwell can use his shadows to cheaply and quickly farm an obscene amount of basic resources, whether its rocks or woods he can farm it faster than any other character by a landslide. By collecting resources this quickly and sharing them with his team he essentially frees them up to pursue other goals and accelerates all building plans by in game years. His combo with Wickerbottom is that he is the only other character who can read her books and with his built in sanity regen he can negate the sanity cost of doing so meaning that he can save her sanity and put his sanity regen perk to work so that it isn't wasted. Now, from those quick summaries, we can see that the one thing that makes all 4 of them powerful is the fact that they are truly unique in a way that can not be replicated or used by another character. Other people can't have Wolfgang's strength, other people can't get overcharged, others can't use shadow partners, others can't make and use books. These characters are actually special. Characters need to be special in some way that makes it worth picking them. While I don't want to start up an old fight, let's take a quick look at Wigfrid vs Wolfgang in DST for the best example of how a lack of uniqueness can make a character not worth picking. Wigfrid is not as tanky (despite her built in damage negation), she does far less damage than Wolfgang (when she attacks 8 times it's the same as Wolfang attacking 5), she does not get a speed boost like Wolfgang does (which frequently let's a kiting Wolfgang get in a full extra attack before dodging the enemy's attack), and she does not have her downside fully negated via Wickerbottom or any other character (while Wickerbottom can grow food instantly, she can't grow meat). So from a combat and teamplay perspective Wigfrid is a worse Wolfgang in all regards. So to make Wigfrid a viable pick and a valuable teammate we have to look to what actually makes her unique. She has unique craftables. A spear and a helmet. The spear is slightly better than a basic spear but is made worthless with any decent mid or late game weapons but the helmet is a great upgrade on the football helmet, being both cheaper to craft and stronger. Sadly, a player can just change into Wigfrid in the late game, craft as many of these cheap but excellent helmets as they want, then change back into a better character and not have to deal with her downsides. Wigfrid, aside from "I like the character so I pick her anyways" reason, has no reason to be picked by someone who is trying hard, as her only unique aspect can be made in bulk and used by others. And this is exactly what is going to happen with Winona. Craftables should never be taken into account when balancing a character unless only the crafting character can use it. If any character can use it and you nerf a character to an appropriately weak state to justify the power of their craftable, then players will always just use that weak character to craft stuff then change into an actually good character. This doesn't make characters more interesting or powerful, it simply furthers the divide from the top 4 characters and everyone else. This is less of a refresh and more of a slap in the face to people who have dedicated time and love to Winona and I genuinely fear for any future refresh announcements as it is unlikely Klei will learn from this mistake and we will simply see average characters get brought down to worse levels, while providing new toys for the 4 best characters to use and abuse. So while you may not love Winona, what if it were the character that you loved who got nerfed in such a way that (s)he becomes annoying to play and only adds power to the top 4 characters. First they came for Warly, and I did not speak out - because I was not a Warly main. Then they came for Winona, and I did not speak out - because I was not a Winona main. Then they came for my main character - and there was no one left to speak for me. TL;DR So, this refresh honestly killed a character who was at least fun to play by giving her a crippling and annoying downside in an attempt to balance the strength of her unique craftable. Characters should not be balanced around their craftables. If they are, then players will always simply build said items then change into stronger characters with better stats. I posit that you could entirely remove this new nerf and Winona still would not be a "power 3" level character. She'd be just fine, a character that you pick for aesthetic reasons and who happens to have a cool and useful catapult and no real downsides or upsides. Characters must be able to stand on their own two feet and be worth picking for their stats, perks, and uniqueness. A unique craftable item is a fun extra upside, but it can't define the character when other characters can use it equally well. There are many other things I would like to say about balance cause the core focus so far was only about craftables. If this post actually reaches anyone then I would love to discuss more the flaws in designing a character that simply counters their own weaknesses in boring ways (visa-vi Warly in single player). I conclude this post with a few images of my megabase on Winona. 120 hours of my life dedicated to a fun character with a unique niche and interesting personality. Now to just sit there, unplayed and unfinished, because of this "refresh." Rest in peace.

Winona's catapults have utility similar to a Fling-o-Matic (they do aoe damage that is of similar value to a Fling-o's aoe freeze effect in combat) and while they are fairly expensive, I don't think they are nearly as expensive as they ought to be. Adding 2 gears means that you really have to commit to putting one down, because you'll only get one gear back from hammering it or letting an enemy kill it. Note how it has immediately been put to use as a boss cheese technique, in a similar manner to how Fling-o's have been used with a perpetually-smoldering Dwarf Star. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EWFN2hosF5w&t= https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8f7dwPjp-7U https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WfZRytNWVMQ

Just figured I'd put this here because I haven't seen anyone post it.

Ok guys...a small context here, I'm studying animation at my carreer,and last semester my final project was a DST animation about Winona's past and lore,anyway it was three months ago and me and my friends did the research and stuff to make it,and the animation was like our interpretation on the lore of the character... i even posted here when it was released and some of you watch it... But today's release made ourselfs scream of joy in the middle of the school, when we watch the official video and see that we not only got some stuff right, but even some parts of the video looked like if Klei watched our fan animation and recreated it, we're not complaining ,we are happy as hell, coz in our opinion, they do look very similar and it's like joyfull to think that it could be that someone out there at Klei, watched our video and got inspired by... any way...you guys tell me what you think... here is our video... sorry if I look like a crazy fan but i´m just very VERY HAPPY for this!

Their mate ventured out to sea a while ago and hasn't returned. They're just sitting on the dock now, pining for their dear one. There have been longer expeditions before, longer times apart... just not any that they can recall.

Per the advice of some forum members, now that i'm doing art a lot more frequently, I've decided to have a common post for my work. I'll be adding tags as the subject matter of my work expands. For starters, have a blacksmith merm Winona

My take on the the fact how fans are disliking Winona. I think that all she needs is just.. a clockwork MECH! I have implemented different clockworks parts in the design to make it as much in-game looking as possible. If you like the art please like and comment. That will help a lot

Ohey! You found my art thread! Well, I'm sure you know what goes on here- ART of course! Doodles and assorted pieces of digital art I make related to the Game Don't Starve. Granted I'm not bloody brilliant at art but I do the best I can at it and enjoy any smile it either gives or receives. I am very keen on Illustrations and fantasy so that is what inspires my drawings mainly. Portraits are nice too! In any case, glad you came and feel free to have a look around. There's snacks in the kitchen, all the art stuff is in the gallery. I'm open to critiques and comments. In any case, thanks for popping in! Here's a sample of something I made.