I initially posted this on the steam forums, but thought it would be better to post it here as well
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Firstly, I'd like to say that Woodie is a fun character to play. Although far from being top tier, his quirkiness makes him fun to play imo. Currently, I feel that his werebeaver form is in need of some work, to balance out the pros with the cons, and set Woodie aside as a character that is useful in his own right and not just a less powerful, higher hp Maxwell.
So, before listing any suggested changes, I'm going to list the werebeaver's qualities, sorted by, what I consider to be, positive neutral & negative traits.
Pros
- Chops trees quickly (signature perk)
- night vision (probably the strongest perk)
- infinite durability all rounder tool (limited by log meter, though)
- no hunger drain
Neutral
- 10% speed boost: although this seems like a perk, you lose the ability to equip items (see cons). Not having the ability to equip speed boosting items like the walking cane and magiluminescence actually renders this perk somewhat moot
- 240 overheating/freezing insulation: transforming drops your equipped items, which would likely be insulation items easily equal to 240 in Summer/Winter seasons.
Cons
- no access to map
- Forced transformation (full moon)
- fast log meter drain - threat of log meter stravation (full moon)
- can't equip items and low damage & damage resist (useless for combat)
- can't interact with or view inventory (no access to sanity or health management tools)
- can't pick up or interact with items on the ground
- no sanity management (although sanity loss can be a positive, if one wishes to be insane to farm nightmare fuel, and Woodie makes up for it with Sanity management with pinecone planting, he has no way of actually managing sanity while in werebeaver form)
- can't use wormholes
- can't enter sinkholes (cave entrance)
While I understand that the Werebeaver form offers a risk-reward type benefit, I feel that it is too limited in its funcionality and people are often demotivated from transforming at all, due to the limited functionality and cons that go with it. My hope is that with some tweaking, this form will become more viable.
My suggested changes:
- access to map
- able to pick up items
- having walking cane in inventory passively boosts werebeaver speed by 20%
- increased log meter drain for non full moon transformations: this is mostly intended to offset the increase in power.
- able to interact with wormholes & sinkholes (mostly a quality of life improvement)
- dusk has same amount of lighting as night (currently dusk is darker than night with Werebeaver nightvision)
I feel like the above mentioned would be adequate changes. I also feel like this keeps the werebeaver in line with what seems to be the intended design of a non-combatant, resource gatherer.
However, should not all of the above be implemented, other potential changes to be considered could be:
- equipped items do not drop. damaged & damage resist get set to the value of equipped weapons/armour. Insulation values are added to the base value of 240.
- increased damage to nightmare creatures (only if above items damage boost is not implemented)
- can interact with items on ground ie reset tooth traps
- can interact with items in inventory: ie consume food & healing items
That is about all I can think of. I am hoping that this post is seen by the devs and taken into consideration.
I would be interested to hear other community members opinion on the matter and what changes they would like to see, if any.