On 7/25/2019 at 1:29 PM, JoeW said:

What's next?

Next on the list of Character Refreshes is somebody we think many of you are going to be excited about. We are having a bunch of fun with this one and we hope you enjoy Woodie when his refresh comes to DST early September. 

(tl;dr in the form of a changelog at the bottom.)

So as we can see, soon Woodie will get his long awaited rework, but what should that rework entail?

With warly's working buff seasoning, Woodie is in a better place than he was ^{two chops} but he still needs some changes of his own. As he is a lumberjack, through and through we should focus on his wood chopping ability. I think he should have other abilities that help the team more than just having a lot of wood, but his logging is first and foremost.

#1) Wood Chopping

To really help the team, and be the #1 wood gatherer, he needs something that is better then just speed, something better than chopping multiple trees at once or felling whole forests with giants. To really be the best, I believe Woodie needs to get more wood per tree than anyone, or anything else. If he could gain double the wood per tree, then it doesn't matter how fast other methods are, they will still not get as much wood as Woodie can for the same amount of trees. Of course Woodie should still be fast, no doubt about that, but if, say, logging methods A, B, and C, all get 100 logs with different speeds and costs, but method D (Woodie) get 200 logs, then speed isn't as big of a factor as it is for the others.

With this buff, we can finally lay to rest the debate between Woodie and Maxwell, because no matter how many shadow clones max has, he will inevitably get less logs total then Woodie wood.

#2) Bonus Stuff

In addition, we could also give Woodie some sanity when felling trees. like a reverse form of Wormwood, with +15 sanity instead of -15 sanity

Hmm, could probably keep his follower bonus, the pigs can help with chopping.

And, uh, the sanity gained from planting trees can stay, don't see why not.

And... uh... his beard still has insulation, so ...

...Uh

...

... Sigh

There's no putting it off. 

If I am to do a post about Woodie, I have to talk about his other half. I will have to tackle, It.

#3) The Curse

Oh boy here we go. The Werebeaver is a, complicated topic. I will not lie to you dear reader, I do not believe I am qualified to talk about this topic, but I'll try my best. first off, lets get some common ground to ensure there is no miscommunication, as I'm sure few of you have actually played with the Werebeaver enough to actually understand it, me included.

(Info under the cut, no one like a block of text, also almost entirely quoting the wiki here)

Now those are the facts, and I will be using them for the rest of this post. So now that we know this, let's go down the list of problems

1. No ability to self heal.
2. Rapid sanity loss.
3. Bad fighter.
4. Can't interact with structures.
5. Transforming is inevitable with the beaverness meter's passive drain.
6. You drop valuable equipped items when you transform.
7. Since the transformation starts at 25 beaverness, the meter is misleading.
8. Inability to deal with temperature.
9. In general, it's a high risk, low reward transformation..

All you really get from it, is mad chops. You can chop through trees hella fast, but with how frequent you will transform, that's not enough. If we were to categorize the things needed to fix the transformation into a few broad categories, they would be as follows:

• A way to heal yourself without needing outside assistance.
• A way to deal with temperature 
• Can use some structures like gates or toggle things like flingomatics.
• Make the beaverness meter easier to understand
• A way to mitigate, or at least control the sanity loss
• Be good in combat.
• Keep dropped items safe during and after the transformation
• A way to avoid transformation without eating.

But with this we also need to make sure we don't make it too strong, lest it become unbalanced, or even overpowered, it is a curse after all. So while we think of solutions, we need to keep in mind balance.

• A way to heal yourself without needing outside assistance.

Simple one first, just have any gain to the beaverness meter also heal you by half that amount, should keep you alive.

• A way to deal with temperature.

Since you can't make fires at all while transformed, seasons are a big issue. You can't heat up or cool down yourself as a Werebeaver without outside help or existing structures. So I believe doing what the form did originally is best, temperature immunity. While transformed you are immune to the effects of temperature, you cannot overheat or freeze, your temperature will still change, but you won't feel the effects of it until you change back. The change will cap to just before freezing and just before overheating, so you're temperature doesn't get too out of whack, but there is still consequences.

• Can use some structures like gates or toggle things like flingomatics.

This is as simple as allowing the beaver to use them, as you may need to turn a flingo on to stop your base from burning down, or open and close a gate to make sure you don't lose any livestock.

• Make the beaverness meter easier to understand

Bit odder but should be easy, just have the meter only transform you when you reach 0 beaverness, but you gain 25 beaverness when you transform, so you still have that buffer, but you also get to be Woodie longer, and you will actually know when you will transform with absolute certainty.

• A way to mitigate, or at least control the sanity loss

I think the sanity loss should be tied into the percentage of the beaverness meter, so if the meter is low, then the drain is very fast, but if its high then its very low. You could see this as Woodie regaining control, so his brain takes less of a hit. Or something. Regaining beavernes would also heal your sanity by half the gained amount.

• Be good both offensively and defensively in combat.

One idea is just a straight up buff. Damage should be increased to 51(68 against wood), so, tentacle spike level normally. Damage absorbed should be increased to 80%, like a log suit, simple. These combat buffs already make him far better at combat then ever before, and they are pretty early game, so it's not that unrealistic. Of course, as a Werebeaver, you will hit a lot faster than others, so you get some mad damage per second with it. This won't be anything spectacular later in the game, but it should allow you to hold your own when beavered up earlier in the game.

Another, much better solution, is to have the damage and defence rise the lower you're beaverness meter is. This would allow you to get some mad damage and defence as the beaver, but only when you are close to starving as the beaver. This would also help with the risk vs reward thing, higher risk, better reward. At 90%+ beaverness your deal 17 damage (27.2 to wood) and block 25% of all incoming damage. At 10%- beaverness, you deal 68 damage (102 to wood) and block 90% of all incoming damage. This makes using the Werebeaver a more interesting experience, you could start chomping on trees to keep your sanity  from getting too bad, or let yourself take the sanity hit and risk starvation for some mad damage. A nice risk vs reward.

• Keep dropped items safe during and after the transformation

Could solve this with a simple bag that drops when you transform, the bag is fireproof and shows on the map, so you don't need to worry about losing anything. It only stores things that you drop as the Werebeaver upon transformation, dying as the Werebeaver still drops your items onto the floor as usual. This does not act like a bundling wrap, it's more of a backpack kind of pack, you cannot access its inventory like a chest, you can only open it like a wrap or klaus gift, so everything drops out when opened.

• A way to avoid transformation without eating.

When you want to stay as Woodie, currently you are forced to eat wooden things in order to stave it off, this not only uses up valuable resources, but is also frustrating. I propose that instead of a passive drain of the meter, when you are Woodie the meter will actually passively regenerate, like how in single player don't starve you can avoid the transformation by not chopping for a while. If we do the same here, I think it should help give the player a lot more control and lets them keep the wood they have gathered instead of eating it. They can still eat it to fill the meter up way faster should they want to continue chopping, but it's no longer a requirement.

And with this, I believe all the major issues have been covered. I do think that the Werebeaver shouldn't be able to use the inventory still, as it seems like a fair downside. I firmly believe that if these were implemented, then the Werebeaver, and by extension Woodie, would be far better in the game.

For ease of reading, I will put everything I propose down below in the form of a dev-like changelog, so you can quote that for your rants on how im wrong instead of my 10,000 words above.

Woodie's suggested rework changelog:

• Trees chopped by Woodie or The Werebeaver give double the log yield (small-2, medium-4, large-6)
• Trees felled give +15 sanity to the Woodie who chopped it. This does not work as the Werebeaver.
• The Werebeaver has been majorly reworked to be more viable and gives more reward for risky play.
• The beaverness meter only transforms you when it hits 0, when you transform you gain an initial +25 to the meter.
• When transformed, any gain to the beaverness meter also gives half the gain to health and sanity. (Example: +10 points to the meter also add +5 to health and sanity)
• When transformed, Woodie is immune to the effects of overheating and freezing, their temperature will still change, but will stop changing before it reaches these extremes.
• When transformed, your sanity will drain inversely proportional to the beaverness meter. (At 90 and above, sanity drains at 10 per minute, at 10 and below sanity drains at 90 per minute)
• When transformed, you can still toggle structures on and off, in addition to being able to open and close gates.
• When transformed, damage and armor is inversely proportional to the beaverness meter (90%+ beaverness: 17 damage (27.2 to wood) and 25% armor. At 10%- beaverness: 68 damage (102 to wood) and 90% armor.)
• When transformed, dropped items will be placed into a bag, the bag acts like a fireproof wrap but does not preserve the items inside, it cannot be picked up and when opened will spill out all items inside. Shows on the map.
• As Woodie, you regen the beaverness meter by 2 per minute instead of draining it by 2 per minute, it still drains by 1.875 per minute as the Werebeaver however.

This is my wish list for the rework, I want to hear what you all think of this, mostly because I want this to be the best it can be and to do that I need your input. Please be nice.

1) Food should not jump into your mouth. Turkeys do not begin to ignore the player when they see food on the ground (the character must have at least Bush Hat on his head). Catcoon is not hissing, but immediately attacking the attacking player. In order to get close to No-Eyed Deers, one must creep carefully, stopping when they lift their heads to listen. And so on.
2) When using monster meat, lasagna is always obtained.
3) Animals protect their lives. If the animal has little health, it will try to run away, like the Bunnymans.
4) Mobs must have different attacks and different frequency of attacks. Strong attacks are best avoided, light and weak blocks, and some attacks can hit a fleeing character. This will not allow to win completely without losing health. Fighting must be a dangerous occupation.
5) Food does not heal immediately. The healing effect of food should be stretched in time, as when using Jellybeans (even longer).
6) A character cannot eat more than his stomach can hold.
7) Walking Cane does not add speed, but reduces penalties from difficult terrain, such as Sinkholes (I hope the developers will also add ice, marshlands and quicksand) and just natural cover.
For example, a character moves on the road with 100% speed, in this case Walking Cane will be useless. But according to Grass Turf, the character moves from 80% of the maximum speed (if the Walking Cane lowers the penalty in two), then with it the character will eventually move from 90% of its maximum speed.
8) Bush Hat and Razor should have a limited number of uses. Bush Hat is a great way to get rid of the wave of hounds by hiding near biffalo, bees and other mobs. It is not correct that such a method does not require resources, such as replenishing Tooth Traps in your minefield. Bush Hat after a breakdown can throw off an unrecoverable Berry Bush, but you are wasting your grass for a new hat.
Even Thermal Stone breaks down over time (maybe just for the sake of balance, but nonetheless), and the razor with which the hard bifalo wool (which is a good fuel) is shaved does not even blunt. Also, a stone razor should not replenish the mind when the beard is browned off, but should do damage as when collecting a cactus (whoever tried to shave with a pointed stone?). For a comfortable shave should be high-quality metal razor.
9) Production takes time. Time is the most valuable and universal resource; you shouldn’t remove it from the game. Perhaps the character will be able to produce something on the go so that the game does not lose its dynamics. Also Science Machine and Alchemy Engine produce items like Crock Pot dishes.
10) Meatballs should require 1 unit of meat (now only 0.5).
11) Random encounters. Now the world comes to life only in the presence of a player. It is impossible to meet a dangerous enemy (varg / sheep and so on), if you do not want it. Bosses appear on schedule. Pigmens do not arrange expeditions to the other end of the island. Warrior spiders do not ambush in berry bushes. If a player wants to go from point A to point B, nothing will stop him. This is a game of survival - there should be surprises.
12) Ice should not be a universal filler (or is it some kind of magic ice?).
13) Buildings should occupy space in inventory (like Houndius Shootius), and not be stored in the construction tab.
14) Traps on rabbit holes. If the trap was set on top of the burrow, it may work, but remain empty.
15) Mobs remember their enemies. It should not be enough to bring the furious Tree Guards to a pair of killer bees so that they would be distracted for a second and forget why they got up.

Added:
16)A caged bird must produce a limited number of eggs per day. For eggs to be rare food, it is possible for a bird to give out not only eggs, but also feathers.

17)A character performing heavy work (chopping, mining, digging) must quickly become hungry.

18)Grassy Backpack should have less slots (it is made of grass in the end - let it be better in the game will be more expensive and high-quality backpacks), not to be waterproof. All backpacks must slow down the character.

19)Sculptures should not be used as walls. They should break down when approaching an attacking mob.

So, since I haven't seen this at all as a suggestion yet, I thought it would be interesting to add as an idea for a new character. So here is my idea. (Also I'm going to show it in a list form so it's easier to find each part of the character easier.)

-Name: Wither

-Design: A standard person, with green rotting skin and rugged hair / clothes

-Motto: "So many excellent meals" or "hungry..."

-Base stats: 225 hunger, 90 sanity, 175 health

-Pros:

   -Can eat any type of food without consequences

   -Does more damage than normal characters

   -Can eat corpses of killed enemies

-Cons:

   -Is a monster

   -Very high starvation rate

   -Slightly slower than average

   -(Possible extra) Can only resurrect from un-dug gravestones.

If you have any ideas, suggestions, or criticisms, please say what they are and what you think would be a good alternative idea in the replies.

Just a suggestion for Warly to get 15-20% bonus of the foods he makes an eats himself? (Similar to his perk back in shipwrecked)

I just feel this would make it nicer for more solo warly players and for warly in general to not just be a base dweller but has some incentives to go outside and do other things too time to time?

The cheese is loot dropped by any mini-boss (Spider Queen) or above when the fight were "cheesed". The game monitors and detects how the boss were defeated, and when cheesed, will satire the player with a drop of cheese curd. You can then refine these cheese curds (maybe 10 of them; like Hail in DS SW) to get one Cheese that can be used as a crockpot recipe as a diary product. However, as Cheese, it can easily turn bad thus 90% of the crockpot recipes will turn out to be Wet Goop when Cheese is used as an ultimate punishment and satire to the cheesers.

I'd like the OPTION to require people joining the server to pick characters that haven't been picked by others currently on the server. I know clothing is t here to distinguish players, etc. Its not about that. Its so that we don't have six copies of the same character, its just not my bag. And if people don't want that kind of server, join one that's 'standard' without that option.

Thanks!

How about complicating the second and next fall seasons? My idea is to diversify the game already licked from all sides, and complicate the already simple survival.
 I propose to send a fog of shadows to each player, in which it is necessary to use a light emitting object, after leaving the cloud of darkness, it scatters and leaves a couple of horror fuels. But if one does not have time to get out of it or not to find the source of light, before absorption, then the next 30 seconds (1/16 of the day) will be held in the dark time of day. The repetition of an error in several players will lead to an artificial night before the onset of natural darkness.
 I also propose to add the raids of hungry shadows on the players' fridges (at other times from dogs). When they reach the refrigerator, they will break it and eat the contents. Those who have eaten up to the limit of their own hunger become gigantic shadows, difficult opponents. If the shadows do not find enough food, then it is in danger to attack the survivors.
 What about the season itself? Winds can bring leaves that form obstacles. Pitfalls of fallen leaves, with shading shadows that only a comrade can help with, otherwise causing damage and theft of inventory contents. Leaves sticky and braiding buildings, can cause damage to the player when using (chests, cauldrons ...), or cause damage when approaching (scientific station, lightning rod)
 Since our bear visits survivors in early autumn, at the end we can expect creeping horror from the shores that run from the cold, setting fire to nearby trees peacefully. He could have come from the side of the wind, from mid-autumn and react to the search rod, maybe it will be a mechanical creation. The last is just my comments for the development of this area, for its expansion.
 to balance creatures and obstacles to be our developers, because even the approximate awards or figures did not lead.

Heya people!

With the long-awaited wait, finally Warly aka "the blackhole chef" (at least for me) comes to our hands to enjoy the beautiful culinary world that surrounds us in DST.

About Warly buffs i really don't want to touch the subject because i know Klei wants a balanced game. I only hope to give my favorite character in the game a chance if Klei wants to give him a little more freedom.

With all my heart i want some more Klei luv for Warly to encourage us to explore the world either in a group and nomad gameplay and this is where i make a stop sign, cause i really wanna play with Warly in nomad mode and "not just be a base dweller", because i want to give a good and important use to the portable cork pot which in a sense is a great tool to be able to play in nomad either on land or on the high seas and explore this spooky and fantastic world together with friends.

Thank you so much Klei for RoT and happy week everyone!

Warly's new recipes, esp. those that give additional game mechanics changing bonuses (like reducing wetness, giving additional attach multiplier etc.) widely believed to be overpowered, even more so for characters like Wolfgang and Wigfrig. Seasoning powders, added to Powdercake, also becomes awfully strong.

Even for a solo player playing DST, they can rotate the following characters using the portal to completely break the game balance (changing a character only takes a purple gem which are generally not even picked up for its very limited use so it is essentially free): Wormwood -> Wickerbottom -> Warly -> Wolfgang. Yes, this is DST, so we can forget about solo players for now.

Give your ideas and suggestions here, so Klei will have an easier time listening to us if they decide to do so.

Something that bothers a lot, is having to collect many items by clicking item by item; When I cut several trees for example, you can not cut and collect, ideally, you cut many and then collect everything, you could create a type function, press and hold [SHIFT] + [LeftClick] on an item, collect all similar items around the character, [SHIFT] + [Click] on the terrain without objects, would collect all items around the character, within a specific range around the character something like one or two blocks.

I have read that 32 bit application can only use up to 4Gb of RAM. I guess this problem cause lag when you build mega base and have many player in your world. I know your developer absolutely aware about this. So why dont you build a 64 bit game to eliminate this problem. Are there difficulty in making 64 bit application?

Something I’ve wanted to see for a long time is the ability to decorate your end tables with trinkets. Don’t just leave them around on the floor for moles to gobble up—put your potato cups and wire hangers front and centre.

The coding required is pretty straightforward (as you can see from my in-game proof of concept). I was thinking about making this a mod, but thought it might be worthwhile suggesting before I do too much work. 

What do you guys think?

I have a suggestion on how Woodie could be buffed. My idea was that Woodie would get buffs based on his log meters value (kinda like Wolfgang). For example when his log meter is high he would get a speed boost (full speed boost at 100), but when it's low he would get a damage buff and damage resistance (max buff at around 30, not sure about the values of the buffs). This would make the log meter more than just an indicator that shows when Woodie will transform. What do you think?

I had a interesting update for Warly's crockpot that will let other people use it: Make Ketchup a garnish that other characters other than Warly use.

I imagine that since Warly has such a high exquisite taste, ketchup would be beneath him but other characters like Wilson, Webber, and Wigfrid would enjoy a additional flavor to their meat.

I mean, why not? You're bound to get pretty wet anyway if you keep that thing unattended.

Wormwood should be able to grow lureplants instantly, like Webber can uprade spider nests. There is a lot cool stuff we can do with lureplants as wormwood, but 2 days is too much to make it flexible enough. Give him ability to fertilize plants with rot or meat and grow it faster. thanks

I feel like Warly's concept is very interesting, but the execution is poor. Some of his mechanics could be fixed with smaller changes, but others would need an overhaul. His theme seems to be "variety is the spice of life", so let's start this journey...

His food-variety mechanic is the biggest offender. First, it can be gamed; According to the wiki and this other thread from single-player, all you need to do is mash several meatballs into your face every two days, because the timer just resets to maximum when you eat repeated meals. You could fix that specific aspect by having the timer add instead of resetting for repeated meals, but that leads me to my next point - the mechanic itself is boring and punishing. It's supposed to encourage players to seek out new foods they may not have tried, or to explore the work for different ingredients, but instead it forces players to keep a flippin' spreadsheet open, with how recently they ate certain meals. That's madness - other players have everything shown in the UI, because DST is a happy fun-time game for relaxation, not salaryman training! Rather than clutter up the UI with a dozen icons for his most recent meals, let's take an idea from that single-player thread - simply give him a random target every day. Simple targets like "meaty" or "sweet" would give him a small boost to sanity, in addition to the meal itself, while something specific but with common ingredients like meaty stew would be medium, and rare ingredients meals like Glow Berry Mousse or Volt Goat Chaud-Froid would be a large boost to sanity. Missing targets would penalize him for increasing amounts of sanity for every day missed (in a row). If you really wanted to put in the extra variety, you could have location-targets - maybe he's craving to eat at a certain location on the map (with a player-visible marker), or a certain biome!

His spices are pretty good, but not great. First, it seems like adding spices overrides his food-variety mechanic, since he doesn't say his "I'm sick of this" lines; Alternately, it's just because the game doesn't show two pieces of text for the same meal. If it does override the variety need, I feel like that's just a grindy way to get rid of a grindy mechanic - the preceding paragraph obviates the need for this. If it is just a UI-limitation, then it is again made irrelevant. Now, onto the bigger problem - his spices encourage the opposite behaviour of his main mechanic. You just grind (literally and figuratively, so it's doubly-bad) ingredients, then apply them to food for small bonuses. Monotony is the spice of life! The game already has special meals like Volt Goat Chaud-Froid, Glow Berry Mousse, etc, so why invent a whole new mechanic that also is boring? Ditch the grinding mill, seasoning station, and just add a few more recipes with specific effects!

The rest of Warly seems pretty fine to me. Not eating plain ingredients? Fine. Special backpack to encourage and help with his food-theme? Also fine. Faster food drain? Exactly as fine! Special meals only cookable by him and his special pot? Fine dining at its finest!

Now that I'm not the only one experiencing severe lag on console, I would really like it fixed. I bought this game to play with my brother on spit screen, but we don't even bother with that anymore because it's too excruciating to rubber band all over the screen. I feel ripped off, so please fix the lag. Most of my previous attempts to bring up this issue just seemed to go unnoticed

So I've been thinking lately about a few things. I've taken issue with how certain older bosses don't really stand up to the glory of the newly added ones. For example, a Deerclops feels like just a larger mob or a miniboss at best, when you compare it with Klaus. I ended up coming up with ideas on how to improve the original Giants and making them more of a threat, so that you get that feeling that you're facing a dangerous boss monster.

That made me think about Ancient Guardian/Minotaur. It's... basically a Rook, except bulkier, faster, and obviously it deals more damage. While it was something for the old standards, nowadays he feels... very uninteresting and underwhelming. After all, the Ruins are intended to be this endgame location, very deep into the caves where not many adventurers dare to step foot into. It's supposed to be a high risk, high reward area, full of powerful ancient knowledge and items, but also full of dangerous encounters. I believe Ancient Guardian in particular could use a rework, as he's basically the final boss of that area, and the final step before being able to face off the current final boss of the game - the Ancient Fuelweaver.

Inside the Ruins' Labyrinth lies an arena in the center. It looks like it was specifically created for fighting purposes, with a graveyard nearby to bury the ones who didn't emerge victorious. The Ancient Guardian should be the champion of this arena. He could take more on the "minotaur" part of his concept (since that is his prefab and the entire area is a reference to greek mythology), and become a bipedal warrior. Here's a concept I came up with:



It's heavily based on The Grand Forge Boarrior, as its posture and behavior is very fitting of the concept of a minotaur that's purpose is to protect the Ruins. It would also allow Klei to reuse a lot of assets that they already have, and give the underappreciated Ancient Guardian some new attacks to spice the battle up.

Ancient Guardian could be asleep until the player enters the area; that's when the beast would wake up and immediately start pursuing it. During the fight, it would swing one of the Thulecite Clubs, and at lower HP thresholds he would turn it into several hit combos. He should occasionally also perform the spin attack, just like Boarrior started doing when below 50%HP.

I know this is might be a very bold and ambitious idea, and no matter how great it might be, the chances of implementing it are rather low. Still, I believe it's good to dream a bit, so I'd love to hear the feedback of the community!
 

This isn't exactly a deep mechanical oversight, but it's just so odd to me lore-wise. Fish Cordon Bleu drains 10 sanity on consumption, but most characters' examination quotes suggest that they enjoyed it (Wendy: "It's actually... really good..." Wickerbottom: "I'll happily volunteer to taste-test." Wigfrid: "My ally is a god among men." Winona: "Mmm! Love Warly's dishes." Wormwood: "Yum yums!")

You could ascribe it to the foreignness of a frog leg dish for some characters' cultural backgrounds, I suppose, but no one takes any sanity penalties from cooked frog legs or the Froggle Bunwich, which is a much stranger meal. What gives?