In various video games, mostly co-operation based, characters are split into classes, that differ in their playstyle by applying different positive and negative peaks. This way, every hero is intended to be “fun to play”, which is made out of two major factors:
a)Character “x” offers a fair risk-reward system, that is based around the player’s skill, punishing lack of the knowledge and bestowing the best of the best.
b)Character “x” is not able to outperform character “y” in their main role, and mutually.
Now, I think that DST’s problem with rebalancing is “how to make every character enjoyable, without making them under-, or overpowered, while also providing a good risk-reward system, that thrives on special abilities and weaknesses. A good example is Wortox, who gains two times less hunger, health and sanity from food, but is able to use souls for his benefits, which are:
-Faster movement (teleporting)
-Healing
-Food source
-Nightmare fuel farming
The other end of the spectrum, however, shows us shallow and, in overall, weak characters that even though, are specialists in some form of survival, don’t give us a valid reason to play them, especially if another hero is able to outperform them in their very task.
I will ask you, who do you believe is outperformed in their main role, while also being boring and weak?
One of the reasons is Woodie, a lumberjack with a talking axe and a curse that makes his choppers 6 times as big. When we look at his stats, we can see the following:
-The infinite axe that chops 2x faster
-Log meter that needs to be filled if one doesn’t want to go beaver
-Longer friendship with Pigs/Bunnymen/Lobsters etc.
-5 sanity per pine cone planted.
These are not necessarily horrible stats, and it gives us a fair risk-reward system, they don't make Woodie "the best" at the wood gathering, with the current champion being Maxwell, who can summon his shadow copies as "cheap" manpower. And I agree, that nerfing Maxwell in order to buff Woodie is not the best thing Klei can do. But, before we start discussing what they can do, let's look at Woodie as a character concept.
He's a lumberjack. That's all. I'm not saying he cannot be fun to play, but the part of survival he specialises in is extremely basic - everyone can gather wood, which is necessary to survive, which means most players will have a tree farm before day 20. That's why I believe he should get a buff that extends his role - as a nature lover.
These are my ideas for his overhaul:
-Crops planted by Woodie now grow 20% faster and will fruit in better quality crops.
-Woodie is able to make his own fertilizer from various pine cones. It quickens the time a plant is needed to grow and will sustain them in winter. Each fertilizer lasts about 5 days but needs to rot for 10 days in order to be usable.
-Lucy is now prone to dullness. The duller it is, the more it will take to chop down trees. It can be sharpened by using cut-stone as a whetstone (each cut stone restores 50% of its durability, and Lucy itself has 175 durability
points).
-Woodie is able to craft a "Wooden dam", a tent-like structure used to immediately recover from Werebeaver form. It has 6 uses, and also 150% water resistance (dries the player quickly). Everyone is able to use the dam, but only Woodie can build it.
-While in Werebeaver form, Woodie now loses hunger two times quicker than usual.
-While in Werebeaver form, Woodie doesn't freeze, for a cost of immediate overheat.
TL;DR - Woodie is outperformed by Maxwell. Overhaul: Woodie is a farmer with own fertilizer that works in winter, Lucy needs to be sharpened in order to be used, Woodie is able to make his own tent that immediately puts him back into human form + dries players quickly, Werebeaver is good at winter but bad in summer + 2x faster hunger loss.
I'm prone to any suggestions and/or critique.