This is not the direction Don't Starve should be going

[Milordo]

On 2/28/2023 at 8:15 PM, dzzydzzy said:

According to you. But the thing is, Klei has developed it. They have plans beyond our grasp. The critique of "this goes against the spirit of the game" whether that's in regards to artstyle, a boss fight, new UI, or new mechanic is a little silly when critiquing any game. At the end of the day, none of us are part of the dev team. They are the ones who have meetings, pitches, etc to weigh these decisions and then work tirelessly to code, illustrate, animate to get it out to us to test.  And comments like these just sound like a dramatic fear of change.

This happens every beta without fail (I was guilty of this when I first joined the forums) there is at least 1 post that goes "I am displeased with your decision, now here's my opinion on a completely different idea" which is insane, because hours of work have already been poured into what we see. They are not gonna scrap it all and start from square one just because a forum post has a couple likes and comments. 

could've saved yourself some time from typing this up then.

Wtf? Then what's the point of talking at all? We should accept everything Klei does without saying a word, because we're not a part of the grand invisible scheme of the developers. What is the point of this comment?

On 2/28/2023 at 8:21 PM, Wildbaldie said:

and I don't get the point what you mean no malus, most trades are not beneficial for example one log two twigs, more like designed for emergency use, such as no twigs to make torch in winter than change a log to twigs because could get log in winter. 

There are no malus on making marbles, green gems and all other gems, Iridescent gems, big meat, ecc....these are all resources that a good player can gather really easy and abuse. Not to mention in a big team of players. 

On 2/28/2023 at 8:34 PM, Wildbaldie said:

and for myself I am an advanced player I want to use wilson to play my long term archive. why he must be a "blank character" who have nothing interesting points just for "new players". now at least I can play throwing torch its funny.  

Having a blank character, giving you the vanilla experience is not bad. Sure it could be boring but it depends on a personal level. After all, there are people who like the boring artifical difficulty of Wes.

On 2/28/2023 at 8:34 PM, Wildbaldie said:

but the situation is most new players play other characters than wilson. u see how many newbies play wilson in official servers? I see many of them play wendy or wigfrid. In dst except wes all characters' upsides significantly outweigh the downsides. 

For the "upsides significantly outweigh the downsides" congratulations. You understand now, the great old design of Klei on making excellent characters.

For the new players, hmnn wait. Wigfrid and Wendy is a small circle you made. New players pick up Wilson by chance, Wilson if suggested from other sources as starting character to train on Don't Starve as a tutorial and then they mostly pick up Wend, Wigfrid, Webber, Woodie, Walter and maybe maybe Wx. All the others one is a different story.

[Milordo]

5 hours ago, Evelo said:

- I completely agree with the way to obtain Inspiration is very... lackluster. Having a method where experimentation can grant inspiration sounds more exciting. No achievements!
- I do not think the skill tree is bad per say I think it needs balance changes. The skill tree is fine in theory so long as the acquisition of perks is engaging rather than "Wait 10 days"
- The suggestion of a Glossary or Encyclopedia or Exploration Diary is quite interesting. It can give users details about certain things and maybe give a progression system that is useless to older players since they know everything anyway, but useful to newer places (such as little tidbits about tactics to killing, common biomes, drops, etc) It could encourage exploration but I am warry since maybe players will want to fill it to completion then stop playing the game. (You can kind of see this with the Cookbook and the Farming Hat book thing). This in essence would be an achievement system. Yeah it isn't actually affecting the mechanical gameplay of Wilson in anyway but I think that is fine. The current system barely does too. Well with the exception of the Transmutation stuff which I both like because it could be useful if nitre is added, but it is also negative because it can cause newer players to neglect some resources and push them toward ideas that they might never have if the option of transmutation was never a thing.
- I do agree with the spoiler of AFW is a rather interesting decision, I do not think it is "bad" but I dont think it is "good" either. I think instead of giving it the official name rename it to "Defeat a powerful creature of the Shadows" or something. It still has that "oooh what's this?" without being so direct for players who wish to go at things blind.
- As far as the Kiss:Curse thing, Wilson has always had the Kiss (his beard/insulation/beard hair) with no Curse. The effects of the non Transmutation skills are very minor and I do not think would be poor inclusions. The addition of the transmutation is where, I agree, there should be a curse or malus as you put it. Over all since the power creep of characters their effective curses seem to become less severe over time i feel the downsides of the survivors should be leaned into more severely to compensate, but that is my opinion.
- Regarding the direction Don't Starve is headed: I don't think I fully understand your thesis. I only really play Wormwood and occasionally Warly because they are the only two that have legitimate and impactful downsides. The actual content outside of character refreshes have been amazing. I love the ocean and look forward to more additions to it. The caves are pretty bland given their size but I know more things will come. The game even after all my knowledge and experience is still difficult and I would even say "uncompromising".

Heya @Evelo thanks for the comment! I'll try to respond to each point

1) Yeah, waiting is lackluster. The experimenting bit was inspired after I played with a lot of friends online who bought the game and explored the game from the start to the end. Really cool and funny seeing them speculating on each section of the game of "how should I do this?" and I agree with no achievements

2) Fine by me. I hope Klei will focus on the balance department.

3) This is really intruiguing to discuss. I don't want to make the response much longer than it is but yes. I agree with all said although I'll be real with you. I never saw people wanted to fill the cookbook and farming hat and leave the game. As also those great system have items from all the five levels, encouraging players to explore and find more things to do in the game. It quite had the opposite effect.

4) Maybe I was too harsh. It's defenitely not the end of the world, but still....

5) I don't have a firm opinion on this, so I will stay neutral.

6) I....I'm sorry. The last point regarding the "direction of Don't Starve" was pretty rushed and bland. I could fix it and revisited it but I'm lazy :P  My fears was about Don't Starve losing that flavour of staying mysterious, making always every three months an update to put content just for the sake of content, becoming a generic jrpg or mmo with the introduction of skill tree, ecc, ecc....  I'm half main Wx, half main Wormwood and played and mained 100% all the characters, so Warly included.  

5 hours ago, Mysterious box said:

This is something that seems to be coming up a lot in multiple areas and it's hard for me to comprehend nothing has technically changed about the base of Wilson you can completely ignore what was added to him with zero consequences it more or less strikes the perfect balance of a character who never changes but can change if you choose to.

 

You could completely ignore about the new Maxwell rework. You could completely ignore Winona catapults'. You could completely ignore Warly dishes. You could completely ignore Webber spiders. You could completely ignore Wigfrid songs. You could completely ignore old Wolfgang status pre-rework but... oops. We know what happened, from Klei itself and be real.... you think everyone of us, outside of some strange challenge world, will ignore abilities and items of characters? 

5 hours ago, slendyproject said:

Im just gonna go ahead and say that this forum needs to stop clinging onto game design directions and decisions from like 10 years ago. Im not entirely sold on the skill tree but not because its a skill tree. Dont starve is not the same game as it was when it launched and a skill tree isnt even that out of place with what the game is nowadays.

The discussion shouldnt be "dst should never have a skill tree", it should be "how should a skill tree work in current day dont starve". I certainly dont think it should have torch duration upgrades and beard inventory, but im also not gonna oppose its existence just because a decade ago the game wouldnt have had one.

Dst doesnt need a basic slate character just because ds had one. Dst doesnt need to refrain from permanent progression just because ds did. Dst shouldnt hide everything from players just because ds did (imo there should be achievements as pointers to bosses even).

Look. Look.

Your argument is really cool and touching. I want to state things that I didn't specified previously on the post. I don't know what is the general feeling of the community of the old design, but I'm not against any new "path" taken by Klei. Afterall I praise the new farming plant system introduced on 2020, as it was a great addition for the game, aswell other characters reworks and so on. I'm not against the idea and concept of the skill tree, even if it doesn't excite me very much... I'm ready to see how a skill tree could work in current day don't starve. Is the realization, how Klei made it, that is wrong. I'm not an old grandpa gatekeeper that despise every new thing that he see. I'll obviously stay positive and optimistic that Klei will see the general feedback and do big changes and fixes for this mechanic, as @Place Holder said. 

The final part it's a hard disagree for me. Dst not hiding things from players and turning it as a basic general bland mmo game like others, with achievement systems, tutorials, ecc...it's not dst anymore. 

5 hours ago, Mysterious box said:

To add to this we already have permanent progress in the form of the cookbook and the gardeneer hat.

Which is exactly my point of the post. Why instead of the skill tree, don't make a permanent progress for the game in general with Wilson? Instead of just a "pokedex" of foods and plants. 

[Mysterious box]

4 minutes ago, Milordo said:

You could completely ignore about the new Maxwell rework.

You can't because this changes how his abilities work ones that he previously had therefore you can't pretend this had no effect like you could with Wilson who is unchanged until you interact with the skill tree. I was talking in the context of people talking about them being upset about the current version of Wilson changing how Wilson plays when it actually didn't unless you choose to. Maxwell and Wolfgang have had their core mechanics change so this comparison doesn't work. But even with that aside why even include Warly in this he hasn't changed since his dst release aside from ingredient tweaks to my knowledge. The core of Wilson didn't change just as the core of Wigfrid didn't change so I don't understand how he was ruined. 

19 minutes ago, Milordo said:

Klei itself and be real.... you think everyone of us, outside of some strange challenge world, will ignore abilities and items of characters? 

If you can't play the vanilla character without having the option taken away from you then you didn't want to play the vanilla character simple as that.

[Milordo]

5 hours ago, DVGMedia said:

The whole aspect of Don't Starve. Was that klei would nudge the player into directions of how to survive and where to go. 
alot of it is pretty visual. starting on the surface you see rocks but then you see a strange rock blocking a hole.

Then the player goes down and continues to explore.  then finds another going deeper.

with dst now.  i think the fact that people can see these upgrades I would see how new players would ask. How do i get these gems?
then veterans can help them explore to get them. Its like getting the community to teach.

I kind of think the skill tree actually is much nicer I think it should be added to all characters. Because then it would help people understand what their character roles are and the player can figure out what the character is good at.  plus the skill tree system can also be used to address things that klei did to characters.
like if players like an older system for the character they can build the character for themselves without needing to hurt anyone else who plays that character.

Hmnnnnnn.....bleah. Sorry, but no. Hard pass for me. Giving a skill tree for every characters would hurt Wilson like hell and the game too. I followed and agreed on you, until this point. Again, Webber, Wigfrid, Warly and Wanda already do this much better and simpler.

3 hours ago, oCrapaCreeper said:

The original DS hasn't gone anywhere if you're clinging on to old design. I don't have much vocal opinion on direction but whatever DST has been doing the last few years is very dull to me.

Wilson's refresh doesn't even sounds like something that doesn't fit the game. Do you remember the original crafting system the game had? You would unlock recipes with research points and they would carry over between worlds, Wilson's re work is very reminiscent of that except it's not based off crafting.

Oh, I do, I do. 

I do remember a lot the old research points system. And I also remember how Klei removed because it was too extra complicated, too "extra-steppy" for something that was simple and direct. Except, I remind you that system was only for the prototype system. It was just for unlocking the recipes and you still needed to go near science machines to see them. 

Here you literally change the gameplay. You obtain perks and abilities that modifies the game and give advantage to the experience, without again some malus. It's very far different from the old research point and similar in only few

2 hours ago, Shosuko said:

Happy to oblige.  I think you and I both like DST, but for very different reasons.

Most of your post I think are kinda non-issues to me, but this caught my eye and I wonder what your grounds are?

Sometimes the community give me the vibes of being "competitive". Not toxic, but competitive. Basing a lot of the game experience on the fighting department and boss fights (they're not half wrong, it's Klei fault, but this is a different story). Just look at how immediately the first response in the post is from someone who didn't even read the post and talked about lureplant/wall exploits (wut xD?) and me wanting Wilson to stay useless (again, what). Not that I care. I wrote it afterall that I was ready to the worst. I don't know how much of the community shares my sentiments.   

2 hours ago, Shosuko said:

tbh I think Wilson's way is cute, but a bit underpowered considering lol  Sure you don't have to wait for full moon, but missing all of those dwarf star, construction and deconstruction uses feels like a loss.  Also you can easily yoink 2x iridescent from the archives if you're looking to make the full moon book, and then with that book each yellow gem can be made to an iridescent pretty easily...

 True, true. Just...it doesn't feel right to obtain such thing so early, so fast. And with a team farming gems, especially through Dragonfly, doesn't seems too much?

2 hours ago, Shosuko said:

edit - I noticed Wilson can make Gold out of Nitre...  now if he could reverse that and make nitre out of gold that would be OP!!

Lol, why? Petrified forest exist, such as other ways but it's true that Ds is unbalanced later on gold production....

[Yuuko]

1 hour ago, Milordo said:

 True, true. Just...it doesn't feel right to obtain such thing so early, so fast. And with a team farming gems, especially through Dragonfly, doesn't seems too much?

Lol, why? Petrified forest exist, such as other ways but it's true that Ds is unbalanced later on gold production....

Obtain what so early?  Moon books for wicker?  Turn on the archives?  Either of these can be done pretty quick as the game is now, what exactly do you think Wilson is cheating here?  No world needs very many iridescent gems, and they aren't really hard to obtain if you wanted them.

Each time you kill dfly you get 1-2 of each gem.  Sure you could turn these into an iridescent gem, but don't you think using those for ruins gear is actually much better?  idk about you, but having the ruins gear I'd make with these gems seems a lot better than an extra iridescent.

His upgrades are super expensive too.  3 reds for a blue, 3 blues for a purple...  Say you're just going to run a varg farm in autumn, you get a whole stack of red gems pretty easy that way.  40 red gems => 13 blue gems => 4 purple gems => 1 orange...  Even if you farmed both red and blue and crafted them to purples as anyone else would, you're dumping 2 stacks each of red and blue gems for just 3 green...

[Mike23Ua]

I have a question for you OP, humor me for a second.. but if this was NOT an update to DST & a character specific perk tree for Wilson and was instead a “Don’t Starve 2” where every character had these skill trees & perks would this Not be the direction to take DS in?

I ask because people seem to flip out when Klei changes X or Y, but if X or Y was already part of the game when you purchased it.. would you even complain about it?

Example: Several people for whatever odd reason did not like the changes to the farming system from prior to RWYS.

But I have to ponder that if that new farming system was included in a DS 2 from the start, rather than being an update, would those players have still complained?

I’m sorry I just had to ask.

[DVGMedia]

3 hours ago, Milordo said:

Hmnnnnnn.....bleah. Sorry, but no. Hard pass for me. Giving a skill tree for every characters would hurt Wilson like hell and the game too. I followed and agreed on you, until this point. Again, Webber, Wigfrid, Warly and Wanda already do this much better and simpler.

Its more so that everyone gets what they want. without needing to piss people off. it is nothing but beneficial.  Every character could build the way the player wants. Its also an idea since they are implementing the skill set into the investigate button and a whole new Ui for skill set. and the fact you need  to swap between character outfit and skill set.  KLei is going to use this for much more than  just wilson I bet you

 

[. . .]

i would like more rpg elements in dst but i also want more survival elements too, the wilson refresh definitely the best refresh klei ever made to me

[Dark Vapor]

2 hours ago, DVGMedia said:

Its more so that everyone gets what they want. without needing to piss people off. it is nothing but beneficial.  Every character could build the way the player wants. Its also an idea since they are implementing the skill set into the investigate button and a whole new Ui for skill set. and the fact you need  to swap between character outfit and skill set.  KLei is going to use this for much more than  just wilson I bet you

 

Wouldn’t that kind of make Wilson’s rework useless and not special? Like, he finally gets a brand new mechanic (that needs to be worked on, for sure) and then everyone else gets a version it as well? I dunno, I’d be fine with this if Wilson would get some new stuff aside from the skill tree. I for one would really like to see him be able to create some sort of potions, as part of the Alchemy theme he has going on.

[DVGMedia]

4 minutes ago, Dark Vapor said:

Wouldn’t that kind of make Wilson’s rework useless and not special? Like, he finally gets a brand new mechanic (that needs to be worked on, for sure) and then everyone else gets a version it as well? I dunno, I’d be fine with this if Wilson would get some new stuff aside from the skill tree. I for one would really like to see him be able to create some sort of potions, as part of the Alchemy theme he has going on.

wilson gets what he needs He has alchemy and beard stuff.  He still has his unique powers. The skill tree is not the unique thing to wilson. Just like how klei made all the characters Wilson is the going to be the baseline.  Meaning That eventually all characters will get this. Wilson is the tester to see how it works.

Im just predicting that would happen Because That would be alot of work klei put into designing a skill tree setup  and ui for just wilson.
 

[gamehun20]

4 minutes ago, DVGMedia said:

Meaning That eventually all characters will get this. Wilson is the tester to see how it works.

Wouldn't they have done it when you know they were working on the characters?

[Milordo]

9 hours ago, Cassielu said:

I agree with you, with the exception of the skill tree, I think it's actually a return to the classic DS direction. In the DS, new players accumulate EXP over the course of a few days of survival, which, like playing roguelite, encourages multiple attempts, as EXP does not die with you, and even if you do die, you are rewarded with more new characters. The skill tree works in a similar way, just replacing different characters with different abilities of the same character, encouraging new players to experiment without being too afraid to die.

If surviving in Don't Starve world for a certain amount of time feels like "waiting" rather than something "to do", maybe you shouldn't force yourself to play Wilson, but choose the character you like better and that suits you better.

Don't worry, I'm not "forcing myself" to play as Wilson, but waiting tot days is not engaging, nor requires interactions from the player. I get your similitude but understand that a player can be a sitting duck on the base, farm those hours and acquires those perks free. It would be much much better to have a system that incites you to explore the game and from the feedback, it seems everyone agrees on how bad this inspiration system is. 

And also the skill tree is Anti-Don't Starve in nature. 

6 hours ago, Shosuko said:

Obtain what so early?  Moon books for wicker?  Turn on the archives?  Either of these can be done pretty quick as the game is now, what exactly do you think Wilson is cheating here?  No world needs very many iridescent gems, and they aren't really hard to obtain if you wanted them.

Each time you kill dfly you get 1-2 of each gem.  Sure you could turn these into an iridescent gem, but don't you think using those for ruins gear is actually much better?  idk about you, but having the ruins gear I'd make with these gems seems a lot better than an extra iridescent.

His upgrades are super expensive too.  3 reds for a blue, 3 blues for a purple...  Say you're just going to run a varg farm in autumn, you get a whole stack of red gems pretty easy that way.  40 red gems => 13 blue gems => 4 purple gems => 1 orange...  Even if you farmed both red and blue and crafted them to purples as anyone else would, you're dumping 2 stacks each of red and blue gems for just 3 green...

Although, you're considering just a small portion of playstyle of the game. I could farm Dragonfly first year, obtaining gems for the iridiscent gem, skip everything and still having gems for the ruins gear and Dragonfly is not alone. You even said varg farms. I don't get it why you start the reasoning with calculating red gems, when I could start already from orange gems or yellow gems. And we're considering gems. You can't tell me in any shape or form that making marble out of stones is not out of the ordinary, like nitre and small meat into large meat (btw this perk about meat should have given to Warly...) And we're not considering if you're playing alone or with friends, playing slowly or speedrunning, ecc,ecc.....

The point is, even if niche and really strong in some situation or whatever, the problem of the skill tree is being a system so anti-Don't Starve that contradict what the game was built on. Why these alchemy things are not in the alchemy tab just by standing near the alchemy station and I need to wait tot days to fill a jrpg mmo system? A system that again, strong or not, is giving you perks and abilities with no malus. The irony also being a sorta of "achievement" system in a sense, if we stretch it. Something that Klei was deliberately against.

6 hours ago, Mike23Ua said:

I have a question for you OP, humor me for a second.. but if this was NOT an update to DST & a character specific perk tree for Wilson and was instead a “Don’t Starve 2” where every character had these skill trees & perks would this Not be the direction to take DS in?

I ask because people seem to flip out when Klei changes X or Y, but if X or Y was already part of the game when you purchased it.. would you even complain about it?

Example: Several people for whatever odd reason did not like the changes to the farming system from prior to RWYS.

But I have to ponder that if that new farming system was included in a DS 2 from the start, rather than being an update, would those players have still complained?

I’m sorry I just had to ask.

Don't be sorry to ask, don't worry.

About the question, this is tricky. If a Don't starve 3 (tecnically 3, because the 2 is Dst) would exist with this different system and more aligned with these jrpg mmo elements, I would accepted more because it's a completely new game, in constrast to Dst, something that was based 101 to the original Ds system. You explore and search for the materials, maybe even farm them, go to a science machine and prototype, to then explore and experiment more the game with the new knowledge found. This is Ds in general. 

I remember people complaing to RWYS and I didn't have strong opinions during that period about the new farming system, but in general, everyone of us would not have complained if radical changes were included from the start. That being said, if these systems would then reveal quickly a lot of problems, a large portion of the community, like myself, would have critized and asked for fixes (just watch at Hamlet).

[Milordo]

Soooo.....

I'm still optimistic knowning Klei for so long but yeah....hoping the change was due to them preparing a big drop patch 

[Milordo]

Update 1#:

So, this is the first big patch of the beta. For starters, I don't know nothing about the new boss (and I don't want to spoil it myself) I'll leave it be but I'm really really really super happy that Klei decided to move him into caves (we can only suppose, as we don't know if it was their original plan to place it on the surface, from what we know it could have been a placeholder on the surface, since he's linked to nightmares creatures, them, the fuel, ecc...). Golly, when was the last time we saw a new cave boss? Oh my godness, since 2015 with Toadstool. WOW. We have now 2 cave bosses in total. This is truly a new era for Don't Starve, lol (I'm not counting Ancient guardian, as only boss of the Ruins, and Ancient Fuelweaver).

With this said,Wilson. Klei buffed and changed the torch section. I don't have much to say. As others stated, the torch section shouldn't even exist to begin with. Torchs are very early game stuff, used yes, as a light source, but they're instantly switched with lanterns and miner hats, making torchs an extreme emergency light source but still remaining a useful tool for burning stuff. It's normal, it's the old progression working as intended to leave behind torchs as a light source. I don't get it why Klei is so clingy to update it. It would be much better if it was aimed in general to survival stuff. This can be another trap for new people, like the fencing sword, to upgrade and stay with the torch.

For all the alchemy and shadow courtier stuff, nothing to say but I'm pretty satisfied. It's more balanced and logic now. 

 

The big problem still remain in the core. The skill tree. How the inspiration points are gained. How this system works. How it defies everything Don't Starve is at its core. A character having a lot of perks, abilities and bonus, in a jrpg or mmo fashion, who still break the finale of the game, without a malus or a repercussion, come with a side of spoilers. Not too mention, how it breaks Wilson status quo of being the default character with vanilla experience and perfect introduction/tutorial to new people.

Maybe Klei will make me eat my words, if they'll change so drastically the Inspiration, sorry, the Insight system and how you gains the points, that will make me reevaluate the rework but until then, there is still a lot of work to fix. 

Nice first patch Klei 

[WhackE]

>This is not the direction Don't Starve should be going

You're a few years too late

[cybers2001]

On 2/28/2023 at 11:40 AM, Cheggf said:

Wilson is literally the most commonly played character. And Wes has far better upsides than Wilson.

Ackshually...

[Wonz]

Yea  I also don't like how Wilson has to choose a path and be left out on his other abilities unless he rerolls Wilson to redistribute points somewhere else. Others have all their abilities ready all the time while Wilson can choose only some and being able to select all of them wouldn't ruin the game I'm sure. But then what's the point of distributing them? What's the point of having a skill tree? Why not just make wilson craft better torches, have recipes for transmutations, and have the beard work like before except for food slots, they're cool.
Other characters don't have to pick only some of their traits. A skill tree is not a good thing. Unique doesn't mean good.

[abrocator]

On 2/28/2023 at 7:14 PM, Milordo said:

My proposal = Why don't remove entirely the skill tree thingy and substitute with a "survival book"?

The survival book it's exactly like the cookbook and the gardeneer hat. It opens like the skill tree but it shows all the plants, animals, items, structures, ecc.. that Wilson have encounter in his journey. The more you experiment with these entities and mechanics, the more Wilson will describe them on the book. In this way you have a "tutorial" that could encourage people to play more. It could be described also in a funny way through Wilson speech, leaving some mysteries to the player. I'm not advocating to create this survival book as a wiki in game,  it doesn't need to paint all the details of the game but atleast something that reflects the true nature of Don't Starve, that respect Wilson as the "vanilla" character and new players (also good and veteran players, as this book could be expanded and describe things of further levels and late game). A great tool for teaching players basics and/or advanced stuff.

Another cookbook, i.e. “utility item” which is only about 20% better than keeping a physical notebook next to your desk; a book that you have to physically find in-game instead of alt-tabbing to the wiki or using your memory for the eight or so recipes that are worth committing to memory; a mere reference book that you have to pay to craft each time you come to your secondary base or whatever.

An idea so unergonomic and redundant that only a veteran player could come up with it.

[Mike23Ua]

3 hours ago, Wonz said:

Yea  I also don't like how Wilson has to choose a path and be left out on his other abilities unless he rerolls Wilson to redistribute points somewhere else. Others have all their abilities ready all the time while Wilson can choose only some and being able to select all of them wouldn't ruin the game I'm sure. But then what's the point of distributing them? What's the point of having a skill tree? Why not just make wilson craft better torches, have recipes for transmutations, and have the beard work like before except for food slots, they're cool.
Other characters don't have to pick only some of their traits. A skill tree is not a good thing. Unique doesn't mean good.

This is a very good point too considering that Maxwell (I would’ve said Wickerbottom but you know why..) can use all of his own abilities + read all 17 of Wickerbottoms books to steal her abilities.

You got characters like Wurt and Wormwood running around with complete wetness immunity, forced blooming to move faster, strong grip to completely ignore tools slipping out your hand when wet-

Then you have Wilson who has 2-3 skill tree choices that he has to pick and choose from.

Would he be all over the place if he could have every perk available to his skill trees? Well uhh.. no more than Walter I suppose.

[TheKingDedede]

I wanted to ask since I was getting confused by the posts.

What does "malus" mean in this context? I'm getting a lot of different results from Google. One definition tells me it's a type of crab apple, another tells me it means bad or harmful in English, but another tells me it means it's an analogy with a bonus, or additional compensation.

[Milordo]

Mini-small update;

Now you can transmute 2 red gems in 1 blue and 2 blue gems in 1. Another buff that led more into swapping character zone...

6 hours ago, Wonz said:

Yea  I also don't like how Wilson has to choose a path and be left out on his other abilities unless he rerolls Wilson to redistribute points somewhere else. Others have all their abilities ready all the time while Wilson can choose only some and being able to select all of them wouldn't ruin the game I'm sure. But then what's the point of distributing them? What's the point of having a skill tree? Why not just make wilson craft better torches, have recipes for transmutations, and have the beard work like before except for food slots, they're cool.
Other characters don't have to pick only some of their traits. A skill tree is not a good thing. Unique doesn't mean good.

My thoughts exactly. Why Wilson needs to do all these extra steps when he could learn all these by default on day 1? I get it the intention and ideas from Klei team, but how they did it sucks a lot (that's why beta exist). They always did in these reworks some sorta of "minigames" for the characters, to make them more complex and interactive, like Wendy with mourning glory or Wx with Jimmy. And don't get me wrong. Choosing if use option C instead of option A or B in a strategic way is fantastic. It's what Don't Starve is made and what should lean more absolutely. Choosing if bring a backpack with football helmets, or an insulate pack with log suits or a piggyback with eyebrella and a bone armor. So it makes sense to pick a narrow selection of perks for Wilson but we can see how bad it is in the long run and you can even feel it by playing (and again, it breaks the structure of the game). Small perks and quirks that other characters possess already on day 1 or by only progressing normally in the game.    

They probably wanted to make something unique or original for Wilson.

 

6 hours ago, abrocator said:

Another cookbook, i.e. “utility item” which is only about 20% better than keeping a physical notebook next to your desk; a book that you have to physically find in-game instead of alt-tabbing to the wiki or using your memory for the eight or so recipes that are worth committing to memory; a mere reference book that you have to pay to craft each time you come to your secondary base or whatever.

An idea so unergonomic and redundant that only a veteran player could come up with it.

I want to state, my idea was just an idea. I'm not absolutely here the kinda of person that cry if the devs don't put in the game what the person wanted. I'm worried and only care for the final goal of what Wilson could become. We can make the tutorial book, not even an item per se' and something accessible like the skill tree via user profile when using Wilson. 

I could even discard all this idea and go with @ButterStuffed idea, which I prefer one thousand more than mine to leave Wilson as a complete basic tutorial character. I've crazy craving to play his Wilson and experiment all possible things I could do in different runs with different strategies.

Heck, if butterstuffed idea can't go through, I would be down and be happy with even the vision of @Lil Jay (even though it would tackle Wilson rework problems too little)

They're all better roads for Wilson, than leaving him with just wait x days, spend all the points on alchemy and shadow tree, farm items, make better items --> swap to the real characters you want to play.

3 hours ago, Mike23Ua said:

This is a very good point too considering that Maxwell (I would’ve said Wickerbottom but you know why..) can use all of his own abilities + read all 17 of Wickerbottoms books to steal her abilities.

You got characters like Wurt and Wormwood running around with complete wetness immunity, forced blooming to move faster, strong grip to completely ignore tools slipping out your hand when wet-

Then you have Wilson who has 2-3 skill tree choices that he has to pick and choose from.

Would he be all over the place if he could have every perk available to his skill trees? Well uhh.. no more than Walter I suppose.

It's even more problematic that you need to wait to achieve those skill tree choices and nothing more that requires engagement from the player. Already a lot of pc players are ready to cheat it with just 1 button.

1 hour ago, TheKingDedede said:

I wanted to ask since I was getting confused by the posts.

What does "malus" mean in this context? I'm getting a lot of different results from Google. One definition tells me it's a type of crab apple, another tells me it means bad or harmful in English, but another tells me it means it's an analogy with a bonus, or additional compensation.

Malus as the opposite meaning of bonus, so the second option. An example of malus; Wigfrid can't eat veggies, Webber 100 sanity, Wendy can't hit hard, ecc.... you know, the drawbacks. 

Sorry, I may have mixed up the languages  

[Milordo]

Update;

Well, this is it. I guess Klei made up his mind and didn't want listen too much the community this time? That's a big bummer. Really a big bummer and sad at the same time. It felt really rushed and a rework to be made for the sake of rework. I guess it will be remember as "meh" compared to the others. It was fun to discuss with everyone of you! Time to pick 1 purple gem and 1 moon rock and mass craft marble and gems.

[gamehun20]

3 hours ago, Milordo said:

I guess it will be remember as "meh

Maybe for you yes. I for one like what was done for his rework

[Milordo]

52 minutes ago, gamehun20 said:

Maybe for you yes. I for one like what was done for his rework

Happy for you

[Riddla]

On 3/7/2023 at 11:23 AM, Milordo said:

With this said,Wilson. Klei buffed and changed the torch section. I don't have much to say. As others stated, the torch section shouldn't even exist to begin with. Torchs are very early game stuff, used yes, as a light source, but they're instantly switched with lanterns and miner hats, making torchs an extreme emergency light source but still remaining a useful tool for burning stuff. It's normal, it's the old progression working as intended to leave behind torchs as a light source. I don't get it why Klei is so clingy to update it. It would be much better if it was aimed in general to survival stuff. This can be another trap for new people, like the fencing sword, to upgrade and stay with the torch.

Since Wilson serves to be as an introductory character, I think Torch upgrades are fine. The game throws you onto the floor right at the beginning and you get no help nor hints on what to do exactly, there is a lot, a LOT of info to digest, and it can get extremely overwhelming. Torch is the most intuitive and safe thing to craft, because its materials are always readily available in your sight from such beginning. All of these extra seconds coming from torch upgrades matter to new players especially, with all the time spent on exploring the game, because once their torches are gone at night, they can say goodbye to all of the progress they've made.

I also don't think it's fair to assume that every single player is just going to immediately jump into wiki and start googling "DST BEST LIGHT SOURCE" - many prefer to play blindly, and it might even take a lot of time to find out about caves, lanterns, and whatnot. Even then, lantern/miner hat can have its own caveats - it can get inconvenient to always go chasing for lightbulbs, while a whole stack of twigs/grass never perish and can let you craft up to 20 torches, also being important for crafting many other things, but again that all depends on player's playstyle and their way of approaching things, it's all debatable.

 

On 3/8/2023 at 7:40 PM, Wonz said:

Yea  I also don't like how Wilson has to choose a path and be left out on his other abilities unless he rerolls Wilson to redistribute points somewhere else. Others have all their abilities ready all the time while Wilson can choose only some and being able to select all of them wouldn't ruin the game I'm sure. But then what's the point of distributing them? What's the point of having a skill tree? Why not just make wilson craft better torches, have recipes for transmutations, and have the beard work like before except for food slots, they're cool.
Other characters don't have to pick only some of their traits. A skill tree is not a good thing. Unique doesn't mean good.

Anything is possible, it could be an experiment from Klei, it could be simply for balance - maybe they don't want the character with no downsides to have so many perks.
Isn't it neat though that you're provided with choices, selecting only perks for yourself that will be the most useful to you? As mentioned already above, torches can be viewed as useless due to lanterns for example, so you're free to sacrifice the torch tree for other skills. And vice versa - someone might not like beard upgrades, but they struggle with light - they'll like torch upgrades much more.