Wanda the Druid - new character idea

[RustyNayle]

Public beta is now available on Steam,  http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=549904379

 

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Hi guys,

This is my first post to Klei forums. I have played solo Don't Starve for 531 hours, and Don't Starve Together for 642 hours. I'm very keen to make new friends in the Australia / NZ area who want to DST with me and dozens of other local friends I have made who do it too.

Anyway, I came up with this idea for a mod character, the coding is coming along pretty well with contributions from Zackreaver, DarkXero and Maris (everything before "Further Developments"), and art from Vivalavie. I have released her for public beta testing because I want to debug her before coming up with further developments.

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Wanda the Druidess - "Nature is my Frenemy"

Back Story
Cursed by Porvata, Polish god of the Woods, for carving her name into a sacred tree. Wanda has a love-hate relationship with nature.

Stats
Health 160
Hunger 125, x0.83 hunger rate
Sanity 130, -1/min dapperness generally, but Sanityaura +10/min when near flowers

Starting Inventory
Lureplant Fleshy Bulb
4 Leafy Meats
Floral Shirt

Nature Scientist
Starting recipes:
- Shovel
- Pitchfork
- Basic Farm
- Nightmare Fuel
- Papyrus
- Bandage
- Honey Refining
- Manure

At Science Machine, can prototype:
- Pumpkin Light
- Improved Farm
- Bucket O Poop
- Bush Hat

At Prestihatitator,
- Magic Trowel (can transplant up to 3 cacti)

At Shadow Manipulator,
- Lureplant Summoning Scroll

Lureplant Farming
Eyeplants are not agro at Wanda

Can harvest their lure without it retracting its eyeplants and going back to "just planted" stage

Can hang leafy meat on drying racks to make leafy jerky

Ovo-lacto Pescetarian
Seafood is the only meat that her vegetative metabolism is able to manage. Anyways, she has a hard time appeasing Porvata as it is, let alone having to deal with Krampus were she to kill too many innocents. So, what she can eat is:
Vegetables, fruit, leafy meat, ice, birchnuts, seeds, eggs, electric milk, butter, honey, fish, eels and froglegs (but not any other kind of meat)

Crockpot recipes that contains the above as primary ingrediants

Raw birchnuts (-1 health, +6 hunger, -5 sanity)

Flowery Hair
Grows at a similar rate to Wilson's beard, delays overheating like a Summer Frest, when cut at half length provides 6 fresh flower petals and +30 sanity; at full length, provides 12 fresh flower petals and 1 cactus flower and +60 sanity

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FURTHER DEVELOPMENT

 

• Still working on the speech script, it's about halfway done.
•  
• Most of the code has been completed for this below "Shenaniganism" plant-naughtiness feature, and the treeguard behaviour, but I encountered a bug before I uploaded this so at the last minute I disabled it for now. This is what it's supposed to look like:
•  
• * Gains #Shenaniganism from cutting down any tree, digging saplings or grass
• * Loses #Shenaniganism from planting butterflies, pinecones, birchnuts, saplings or grass
• * When #Shenaniganism is high enough, JUST ONE poison birch tree or treeguard will be queued to spawn (depending on which biome the player is in at the time / about to pass through). AT WHICH TIME SHENANIGANISM SHOULD RESET. Unfortunately this is the bit that the code currently needs work on, as you might end up with a whole forest of treeguards chasing you at once. The widget also needs a bit of work.
•  
• * Trees that have already awakened as treeguards but afterwards went to sleep will wake up again as Wanda passes by, and are aggressive towards her when woken this way or if summoned by other players (bushhat enables her to hide from them?)
•  
• * Wanda cannot pacify Treeguards / Poison Birch Trees by planting pinecones / birchnuts near them
•  
• * Enable Wanda to craft and/or use Charlie the Gardener's Book of Rain to water mushrooms, farms, etc (or have her own local simulated rain downpour effect)
• Maybe even...
•  
• * Scroll that transforms any tree into corresponding Treeguard, including
• - Spikey Treeguard: more melee damage, shoots blow darts
• - Burnt Treeguard: causes smoldering / combustion to nearby mobs / objects, shoots fire darts
• - Aged Treeguard: brittle, pinecone minions, shoots sleep darts
• - Totally Normal Treeguard: tough, shadow creature minions, melee like a bat bat

** ALL ART; INCLUDING CHARACTER SELECTION PROFILE PIC, IN-GAME SPRITES, ANIM, ICONS, ETC

* Increase the benefits of eating Red Mushrooms and Leafy Meat for Wanda

* Drying leafy meat, and possible use in crockpot recipes

* Eyeplants are not agro at Wanda / she is immune to their attacks


* Accessing the lureplant's inventory without having to kill it (including rot from half-digested meat)
* Harvesting of leafy meat without sending the lureplant back to "just planted" stage

* Enable Wanda to craft and/or use Charlie the Gardener's Book of Rain to water mushrooms, farms, etc

* Incorporate a few other mods into Wanda (the recommended ones mentioned at the bottom)

Eventually I hope to...
* Flowery Hair: grows at the same rate as Wilson's beard, delays overheating like a Summer Frest, when cut at half length provides 6 fresh flower petals and +30 sanity; at full length, provides 12 fresh flower petals and 1 cactus flower and +60 sanity

* Gains #Shenaniganism from cutting down any tree, digging saplings or grass
* Loses #Shenaniganism from planting butterflies, pinecones, birchnuts, saplings or grass
* When #Shenaniganism is high enough, a poison birch tree will spawn (alternatively, I might have a tree guard appropriate to the biome the player is in at the time spawn). NOTE: this is in addition to the usual 1.33% chance of treeguards spawning while cutting down trees, so it is possible if the Shenaniganism is maxed while cutting trees with that 1.33% chance coming up at the same time, that both events will trigger simultaneously.
# Originally I thought of hijacking naughtiness (it might work in solo DS), but more likely I will have to invent this different Shenaniganism personal value, bit like Woodie's Log Meter for DST. Worse comes to worst, I suppose I could just have gaining / losing sanity (but I think this has been done already by other developers, and I don't want to have players micro-managing sanity all the time)

* Sleeping treeguards will always awaken when Wanda passes by, and are aggressive towards her when awakened this way or if summoned by other players (bushhat enables her to hide from them)
* Wanda cannot pacify Treeguards by planting pine cones near them

Maybe even...
* Scroll that transforms any tree into corresponding Treeguard, including
- Spikey Treeguard: more melee damage, shoots blow darts
- Burnt Treeguard: causes smoldering / combustion to nearby mobs / objects, shoots fire darts
- Aged Treeguard: brittle, pinecone minions, shoots sleep darts
- Totally Normal Treeguard: tough, shadow creature minions, melee like a bat bat

Great Existing Mods to use with Wanda:
-Fruity Weapons (Goat in Suit), http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=502128980
-Rot Machine ([bSy]Jupiter), http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=510956288
-Mushrooms (Lumisteria), http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=464110887

Edited December 10, 2015 by RustyNayle

[FrostyVoid]

Maybe just a quick suggestion. If Wanda is such a nature lover then nature clothings should have a greater effect on her. 

 

Her hair would only give you flower petals which in comparison to other characters in the game like Wilson this is a very low impactful perk. I would suggest including special items that only wanda could use that would take a lot of flower petals or alternatively you could make all the flower/nature inspired clothing to have a greater effect on wanda.

[SmallAsianGuy]

One hella idea mate
Great one, love to see it on thw workshop

[Zackreaver]

Looks like a lot of different things happening all over the place here.

 

0.90x hunger rate means that all food is 10% more valuable on this character, hunger is -20 of average, sanity is -30 of average and starts with a floral shirt which is pretty fine.  The 10% more value from food can be fine, but it depends on other factors.

 

The thing about alternate tech tree, is I think you should avoid the applied horticulture book because that makes Wickerbottom feel less important.  It's a problem I felt when I was making the charlie mod, it met the artist's request but not something in particular I would have wanted as Wickerbottom's books are really what makes her stand out as unique.  An alternative would be something else that applies a similar effect, theres alot that can be done with modding.

 

The major thing you should really consider about being able to eat pinecones and logs for hunger is that they never spoil.  This can be a major balance problem as it would make your character very easy at setting up a self-sustaining and non-rotting food supply.  Part of what makes don't starve challenging is that food perish's which causes you to constantly venture out into dangerous territory to replenish it.  At least until you can create a well constructed self-sustaining food supply in your base.  For foods like the tallbird egg, this is fine because they don't respawn that quickly, and tallbirds tend to be an obstacle on their own.

 

The flowery hair is fine and fits the theme your looking to accomplish, and the naughtiness meter > treeguard krampus is a clever twist.

 

As for the treeguard weakness, I'm actually working on a character with a treeguard weakness, and I find that part of the problem is that treeguards are actually more useful to have around than they are an obstacle.  Their slow movement and retaliatory behavior makes them extremely useful once you trick a giant into attack them, or even just hounds.

 

With my character I've actually setup the treeguards to not only focus my weakness character above all distractions, but I also increase their speed so that players can't just run away as easily.  Since the major thing that makes treeguards not threatening, is how slow they move.

 

In terms of moddability, the naughtiness portion would be the most complicated part (not hard though) as everything else is super easy, but it's really a matter on if the character is meeting what your looking for.  

 

Edited October 10, 2015 by Zackreaver

[craked123]

Sounds Amazing! I'd Love To See It In The Game.

 

[RustyNayle]

Zackreaver, thanks so much for the detailed feedback.  As a successful developer, your constructive criticism is definitely well received.

 

Regarding her taking away from Wickerbottom's uniqueness, as a first time modder I thought it would be easy to start by introducing things that are already in the game so as to not make Wanda too OP / game-changing.  It's not like she can summon birds, tentacles or lightning as well, and doesn't spawn with 2 papyrus like Wicker.  I thought eventually enabling Wanda to craft a scroll that summons Treeguards (or transform normal trees into them) might be better.

 

Yes pine cones are a renewable resource that doesn't spoil (especially if other players in DST are gifting them to her), but they only help hunger a little - and they actually hurt health and sanity.  Also, every time Wanda cuts down a tree she earns naughtiness (I'm thinking maybe even 6 points per tree, like killing a smallbird), which means just 5-6 trees being felled in one day and a Treeguard could very soon come and attack her (a big trade off for only 0-3 pine cones per tree, depending on maturity of the evergreen).  She loses a bit of naughtiness each time she plants a pine cone, but then she's losing that food source.  I'm thinking killing a Treeguard could even add 30 naughtiness, which if you have already done anything naughty that day could easily summon another in its place straight away - killing two treeguards within a couple of days guarantees another to be summoned.

 

I was thinking about having the Treeguards' negative sanity aura have an even greater effect on Wanda, since she fears the nature god's retaliation. That will stop her from deliberately mass producing Living Logs this way.  It sounds like you have been able to code the treeguards to react to one of the mod characters you're working on the same way I want them to react to Wanda (attacking her to the exclusion of all else) which is great, it tells me this might be a possible mechanic.

 

I think you have convinced me that her being able to eat Living Logs would be a bad idea.  I should probably not change the game too much that way, but try to keep Wanda's differences subtle, including small bits from other characters to keep it balanced and not feel too weird.

[RustyNayle]

Frosty, thanks for your input mate, Wanda's anxiety gives her a constant -1/min sanity drain, which is why I initially gifted her with a Floral Shirt (+3.3/min).  By the time that spoils on day 15 (doesn't matter if she's wearing it or not), her hair will be long enough to harvest to make a flower garland (+1.33/min) which she will then need to wear at all times (unless she has a more dapper hat), stopping her from benefiting from helmets as often, and makes her a bit more of a pacifist.  Wanda will need to be careful not to harvest her hair on day 60 when Summer starts, if she wants to benefit from its ability to delay overheating.

 

I was thinking 12 petals could be a life-saver if desperate for twelve +1HP petals to eat, or for making a garland if she still don't have any other hats by that stage, but I didn't want to make it too OP.  The nature clothing having a greater effect does suit the character, but I don't want to give her too many benefits and have to bring in even worse disadvantages to try and balance her out again.  If she can craft honey (or "dream fuel") from good flower petals, that would certainly start to introduce a different mechanic into the game.

Edited October 11, 2015 by RustyNayle

[CassieCroft]

I think that Wanda seems really cool. I would love a vegetarian/pescatarian character in DST. I think you have a great base for a modded character and I hope she can come to fruition. Good luck with her! I wish I could help out in some way but I have no idea how to mod and I am not artistic at all. 

 

I really like the ideas about the different tree guards. I think that's so unique and would be really cool if it could be implemented in some way.

 

Fingers crossed you can get her figured out

 

[Zackreaver]

I would love a vegetarian/pescatarian character in DST.

I've been working on one for a while.  The real challenge is how the character handles winter.  Meat is a common go to food source for handling winter, but for vegetarians it's not as reliable.

 

Thankfully with the winter there is a huge amount of mushrooms to live off of, but it's still some obstacles for handling the overworld. 

[RustyNayle]

I just uploaded the alpha 0.1 version of Wanda, which has just the custom stats, positive sanity aura from flowers, starting inventory including lureplant bulb, etc, 'nature scientist' tech tree (able to prototype a few things early, as well as honey and manure refining), and diet (ovo-lacto pescatarian that can eat raw birchnuts).

 

Feel free to download it the ZIP, extract it into its own subdirectory inside your DST mods directory.  Wanda will then be accessible as a non-Steam mod which you can enable each time you start a new server. I have tested it with Seacow, and after first manually downloading it yourself, you can also join a server which someone else has started who also manually downloaded the mod. Auto-subscribe doesn't work since it's not uploaded to Steam.

Just be aware though, that in this version I haven't yet customised the script (currently it's Wilson's), sound (Willow) or image/anim (the "ESC Cat" from the Extended Sample Character template which I used as a basis). I just want to see if it is possible to survive with her past Winter. Please give me as much feedback as you can, positive or negative comments, suggestions, etc. I also need artists / coders to help me take her further!

[RustyNayle]

Frosty, I was thinking of trying to code a buff for Wanda when she gifts garlands to pigs or other players, or let her eat garlands as you used to be able to in DS, but now I think I might go with your idea and give her sanity +2/min and +1/min with garlands and strawhats/bushhats respectively. Not sure if I should give grass suits a sanity buff, it might be too OP, but I guess she does spawn with the floral shirt, which has a better sanity buff so after it has spoiled, the grass suit will be a cheap sanity / armor alternative

[RustyNayle]

Vivalavie is working on the art this week, so I can upload the full alpha Wanda 0.3 (most of the code and art, but not script or sound and none of the more advanced coding done).