After so much talk about Power Creep, here we are again.

[ImDaMisterL]

Hey everyone, remember to stay on topic and to always be polite. Don't target other users in your posts or make things personal, that only ends up derailing threads and making it uncomfortable for everyone around.

Thank you for understanding, and have a great day

[WhackE]

6 minutes ago, NikMik said:

We PAID money for a game that offered a specific experience. The product we paid for has been irreversibly changed to the point it's no longer even the same game. Of course we're going to be upset about it. We were promised - and delivered - an uncompromising survival experience. Unforgiving, challenging, and with a design philosophy based over survival and needing to use traps and gadgets to mete our goals rather than the "hold CTRL+F combat" experience the game has turned into, with each survivor becoming increasingly overpowered enough to completely trivialize most content from day 1.

 

The community that entered the game from the beginning should not be forced to learn how to program to pick up the scraps of the game they once loved in order to try and cobble together something that represents the game they were initially promised. Modding should be a fun way to add extra; not a poor band-aid.

You put my exact thoughts into words, Thank you based Tiddler.

[Mr Giggio]

I mean, after volt goat Jelly this isnt a serious thing to be talking over and over again, right? And before that, it was all about Wolfgang. So I think we reeeally need to chill. Characters bein stronger cuz u saw a big number or too many possibilities doesnt mean they 1 - will get all of that cuz you do have to choose 2 - will be more stupid overpower than some features we had for sooooooooooooo long and the others which are here for some years by now

What I am pointing at is:

> If we will have strong characters, the more options the better. So if one char is stupidly strong for some shenanigans, let others be as good as for other situations, or for the same situation in a diferent way. Variety is healthy  

> Probably they will add harder content to match the big buffs and Im kinda excited, bein around for 8 k hours make u want to see some twists, no? It feels like that to me

I guess it is not as bad as you are trying to make it look like. We got worse spikes in the past and yeah, still here. Ones that I dont even agree still today. D: 

So eh

[Swiyss]

3 minutes ago, NikMik said:

We PAID money for a game that offered a specific experience. The product we paid for has been irreversibly changed to the point it's no longer even the same game. Of course we're going to be upset about it. We were promised - and delivered - an uncompromising survival experience. Unforgiving, challenging, and with a design philosophy based over survival and needing to use traps and gadgets to mete our goals rather than the "hold CTRL+F combat" experience the game has turned into, with each survivor becoming increasingly overpowered enough to completely trivialize most content from day 1.

 

The community that entered the game from the beginning should not be forced to learn how to program to pick up the scraps of the game they once loved in order to try and cobble together something that represents the game they were initially promised. Modding should be a fun way to add extra; not a poor band-aid.

Okay. Can you elaborate further? I feel like you are not being the best you can be at explaining exactly what you mean if you use shallow terms without proper pointing at the specific issue so I can NEVER understand what you said.

I play the game since the beta and i NEVER EVER in my entire life felt like the added content was bad until I read some random people pointing vague critics about the game just like you did. It's not about how you feel the game is being treated but how the game is actually getting treated.

Can you explain your point further when you say "traps and gadgets", "hold CTRL+F combat" (please tell me what fights and what problem you have with that), "scraps of the game they once loved" and ".. a poor band-aid"?

Again, I understand 99% of what you felt when writing this but it is impossible for me to grasp a single thing mentioned without being specific;

then you're just complaining without criticizing.

[WhackE]

3 minutes ago, xDpromonick9 said:

Okay. Can you elaborate further? I feel like you are not being the best you can be at explaining exactly what you mean if you use shallow terms without proper pointing at the specific issue so I can NEVER understand what you said.

I think you're missing the bigger picture, you're seeing the forest for the trees. It's not just one specific issue you can point a finger at, It's something that's been happening for years now that has slowly been changing the core ideals of the game.

[cropo]

I feel that making the game multiplayer is the biggest reason for some of these changes. People always go off about how easy the game is, but every time I've ever joined a public server I see the exact opposite nearly every time. Anyone who isn't modding, cheating, using custom characters with broken abilities...they can barely even get past Winter without booting everyone out in frustration and quitting.

 

 

While it's true that the people who originally started playing this game paid for a specific product, the unfortunate reality is that likely over ten times that amount bought this game to derp around on a stream with their friends for a chill friday night, and were met with an instantaneous reality check when they were spending the majority of their playtime with half of their team floating around as ghosts. You might just say to change the settings to make the game easier, and I really don't like brandishing ''studies'' as a form of authority but there has been research shown that players would more often than not quit a game if the ''default'' experience is too challenging, because the humiliation of picking the easy mode is too much for them to stomach.

 

To this day, every friend I have tried to get into the game got super pissed off within the first few days of playing and never touched it again, even when I buy it for them. The whacky artstyle and confusing game mechanics aren't like the typical ''survival'' games they're used to where they're air-dropped in a forest, made to gather resources as an afterthought, and aim their gun at other players. 

 

 

A skill tree offering diverse perks for each character to both contribute to a team and change their playstyles, in plain words for new players to see sounds like it would guide players purposefully to what they need to do to help their team and engage in the world. I might go as far to say that skill trees should have been a thing as soon as they decided to make this game multiplayer. It also encourages longer playtime, since even if they're dying a lot they are slowly unlocking ''permanent'' upgrades that will possibly motivate them to keep trying, and surpass the challenges by just beefing up their character.

 

Not saying this is a perfect solution, I really do miss the days where personal research and willingness to learn games were much larger than they are today. I just don't really think that crowd exists anymore, I know I'm just being anecdotal but I feel like I see that sentiment every time I try to get people to play this game. The game is having training wheels added to it to stop knee-jerk quitting, so Klei might really be going all-in on the post-game content to move the original challenge to that part of the game.

[-Variant]

A quick glance over a lot of this threads feedback makes me a bit woozy.

A good chunk of these replies feel a bit heated. I confess I'm a bit sour about the update but I think both sides are 'in the right' here.
As much as a 'right' as there is...

I do not wish to speak for people but I do think, personally, in my own view, the survival side of the game, and player base, has been a bit neglected lately.

I personally am not a fan of the "Don't use it if you don't like it" mentality. It feels... very dismissive, and rather pointless as it can be used both ways.
Why can't the game cater to both sides? By fact the skill trees do make the characters stronger, yes, this is true! 
As much as say, I for example, can simply just not use them, I do still wish for more downsides and a bit more balancing work alongside these updates.

I did not originally get into the game for the combat, not at all. I am a bit bummed this is the direction a lot of recent content has gone in, as it was never for me. 
This doesn't mean they can't focus on it, but I'd also like some content that caters a bit towards me, and the many other people who feel the same way.
More passive or intricate traps, gadgets, whatever. Examples.

On the note of the skill trees, we can have wacky doofy strong characters that are also balanced! We can have both! Lot of people seem dismissive of this. (This applies to almost everything, too!)

12 minutes ago, NikMik said:

The community that entered the game from the beginning should not be forced to learn how to program to pick up the scraps of the game they once loved in order to try and cobble together something that represents the game they were initially promised. Modding should be a fun way to add extra; not a poor band-aid.

I feel this a lot in particular.
A good chunk of what I was originally interested in is simply no longer there, but a lot of it I can still see simply existing alongside what we do have.
Not everything will fit, no, but no particular side really needs Klei's 'favor' to exist.

[Primalflower]

5 minutes ago, -Variant said:

On the note of the skill trees, we can have wacky doofy strong characters that are also balanced! We can have both! Lot of people seem dismissive of this. (This applies to almost everything, too!)

forgive me if this thought is cliche'd or if its been brought up too many times before, but, i guess, I yet still have trouble applying meaning to balancing a character in the sort of environment where the characters perks aren't competing with eachother? like, what does it really mean, in this case?

[Ulisesvolador]

30 minutes ago, Antynomity said:

Please tell me the DST community isn't going to turn into the DRG community where every single update is immune from any criticism because it's free.

I hate the toxic positivism on DRG community (at least GSG hears all feedback).

19 minutes ago, Scrimbles said:

I can't play old Maxwell without modding the game.

Maxwell Pre-2022 Rework was bad, that's (probably) all im going to say about this topic.

[-Variant]

7 minutes ago, xDpromonick9 said:

Again, I understand 99% of what you felt when writing this but it is impossible for me to grasp a single thing mentioned without being specific;

A good chunk of it is generalized. There's not always going to be something to point out, I can try and provide some examples though.

8 minutes ago, xDpromonick9 said:

Can you explain your point further when you say "traps and gadgets", "hold CTRL+F combat" (please tell me what fights and what problem you have with that), "scraps of the game they once loved" and ".. a poor band-aid"?

A good portion of the game has lately been focused on combat. Some folks simply aren't into that. I'm among them!

Something I had LOVED was feeling like I needed to OUTSMART my foes, not out strength them. I love traps like tooth traps, and Winona's catapults for defense. I'd much rather more focus be put into something more passive like these!
A lot of the content has been aimed at approaching your foes, over say, defending yourself from them approaching. 

A lot of the combat has been mixed up a bit but a good chunk of it is still generalized enough you could boil it down to "holding F" if you really tried. (I disagree in some aspects, I think it's gotten a bit more flavorful lately.)

[Swiyss]

1 minute ago, -Variant said:

A good chunk of it is generalized. There's not always going to be something to point out, I can try and provide some examples though.

A good portion of the game has lately been focused on combat. Some folks simply aren't into that. I'm among them!

Something I had LOVED was feeling like I needed to OUTSMART my foes, not out strength them. I love traps like tooth traps, and Winona's catapults for defense. I'd much rather more focus be put into something more passive like these!
A lot of the content has been aimed at approaching your foes, over say, defending yourself from them approaching. 

A lot of the combat has been mixed up a bit but a good chunk of it is still generalized enough you could boil it down to "holding F" if you really tried. (I disagree in some aspects, I think it's gotten a bit more flavorful lately.)

I think that you're wrong when you're telling me the new content feels like just holding F and focused on combat and here is why:

1_ I have a better reason to base in the archives cause of the new moon shroom interaction with wormwood (base location matters on random generated maps)

2_Seeing the crabby hermit and doing her tasks (not combat). I don't think I have to explain myself in this one. THEY ADDED A WHOLE BUNCH OF FISHES TO FISH and I haven't even caught all of them for my aquarium. How is that combat content. Even the sound boxes are cool and I highly doubt you ever tried to make a song with it.

3_Going to the moon quay island and pacifying those pirate powder monkeys give SOO many base ideas to me/a feeling of peace when you're done that you can't get in the main land. And don't get me starded on the pirates because if they didn't exist THEN the game would be boring asf.(same as brightshades and ALL the new annoyances they added recently, overcoming them feels nice when you're done every single time, it gives me a "wow I survived that hound attack" feeling that puts me back).

And those are just on the top of my head. And what better thing to do than using WURT to kill bosses, wormwood trap, walter slingshot, boats, glitches, walls, catapults, kiting patterns, fire and ice staves, weather pain, morning star, beenades etc..(variety for you)

Being creative is finding ways to overcome boredomness and I can see myself NEVER stop playing this game because of how many thing there are in it. More then minecraft even imo and the game don't even have a redstone system.

[BezKa]

******* THANK YOU.I really didn't want to make a thread myself and get laughed at for crying again.

It's unbelievable, how an update that directly breaks one of the pillars Don't Starve was standing on, is met with enthusiasm and laughter at people who scream and point at the building collapsing. Skill tree for Wilson was pretty damn bad. Instead of making Wilson engage with the world to use his knowledge and do something with his beard, he got a outside-game clickable mod. This feels EXACTLY like clicking "configure mod" in the mod page, and adjusting values, just with bad choices. And now EVERYONE is getting one? What?

The current lategame doesn't warrant the buffs for these characters. I would gladly welcome new skills for them if THEY EARNED THEM. Instead it's either command, or AFK. I'm sick of people saying "you have to play over hundred days tho" you don't have to do ****. The timer doesn't reset when you die. It CARRIES OVER to other worlds, so once you do the "chore" your perks are completely free. And yet, the world itself has nothing to stand against our new overpowered skills.

Another thing that was essential to the Don't Starve experience was the lack of information. You can't just hover over the mob to learn how much health it has, it's damage, or examine an item to learn what it does. You have to find out YOURSELF. If you choose to do it via wiki or a youtuber, that's your choice. But the game will not hold your hand. Except now the scrapbook is there to chase that experience away.

Every time someone asked me what I loved about Don't Starve, it was that it didn't have tutorials, I could learn the world along with the character I'm playing as, MY knowledge, made THEM stronger. I always was sad that this experience happens truly only once. Only once you are new to the game, able to see the wonder, get killed by ******* coconuts falling on your head, shriek in panic when the funny bird starts chasing you. It was my biggest praise, because that's what made the game unique and fun. And it still managed to keep me playing after experiencing all that, it still had some challenge to offer.

I did not expect Klei would try to get rid of that experience, instead of making it even better for new players. Who cares about the world and what it has to offer when ding! a silly little icon appears! I wonder what it does! The point was that you had to get better to survive longer. Not survive barely enough, and get an upgrade to survive longer. Isn't it absolute nonsense to bring in players who need that in order to play the game? If they do, they probably won't ike what comes later anyway! What's the point???

"Character perks were there because they were people who went through different lives and suffered the consequences and reaped from their victories. Wigfrid committed to the bit, got stronger, but committing meant no more eating anything that isn't meat. Wolfgang was a scared, sensitive person, but he had a dream and worked towards it and got strong."

I said in a thread before. Now that these characters have skill trees, we don't know where they got them from. They have no lore or in-game explanations. They're just slapped there.

And I might have finally had a full on breakdown yesterday after learning the game I loved is getting spit on, but honestly it was coming since the Wilson rework. I should have prepared myself, that I'd be losing something I love very dearly, and not in the way I expected. I've only been here for 3 years, not even full. And even I, without needing to be there for 10 years can see how badly these updates damaged the game.

I know it's too late, and Klei generally doesn't remove stuff after it's been released, and that just makes it hurt even more. I can't do **** to keep the game I love. It's being literally taken away from me. I can't even look at the QoL of DS without feeling like it was an omen. Of Klei abandoning the principles of what makes their game unique and special.

I'm so, so disappointed. I don't know if any updates after this will be able to fix this. I think the game's gone.

And I know I'm being dramatic, but I'm not overreacting. This game was a piece of art, that meant a lot to me. And I mean A LOT. I can't even explain it to you without going deep into my personal life. This is a big deal for me, even if it's "just a game" for you.

[NoodlemanNed]

28 minutes ago, Spep said:

about as good an argument as "well you can just not use the crock pot if you think its too good" but go off i guess

This is true. What i said before was pretty dumb and i realize it was a bad attempt at trying to justify the changes from a perspective i dont hold

27 minutes ago, NikMik said:

The product we paid for has been irreversibly changed to the point it's no longer even the same game.

I think the game is actually surprisingly similar to how it used to be back when i started in about 2018. When i was new to the game i had a pretty hard time since i had no idea where i could reliably get food, or how to deal with all creatures who acted in seemingly random ways. Enemies like spiders and pigmen function exactly as they always did, common food items still havnt had their stats changed in all these years, the biggest difference for someone picking up the game is the plethora of new perks (although many of them require you to have a basic grasp of the game before they become remotely powerful). Even the toughest threats in the game like seasonal giant and wildfires become trivial not because wx has night vision, or because woodie can walk on water, its because we learned how to deal with those threats.

I believe the real reason the game has become too forgiving is because the "good" challenge that dst offers comes through a lack of experience, and if you play a game for years while keeping up with every new update, youre preventing yourself from ever experiencing that again. In order to actually benefit from all the power creep from updates you still need to learn the game enough to know that youre capable of such power. This is why people even today quit the game out of frustration for it being too hard, the game didnt get significantly easier, you just got significantly better.

[-Variant]

3 minutes ago, Primalflower said:

forgive me if this thought is cliche'd or if its been brought up too many times before, but, i guess, I yet still have trouble applying meaning to balancing a character in the sort of environment where the characters perks aren't competing with eachother? like, what does it really mean, in this case?

This is in-built mentality for me. Non competitive balancing is something I still cling to, even if not applicable in every scenario.
It's awkward to talk about in detail since a good majority of the ways to word it just ends up with folks thinking you don't care for things being fun for the sake of being fun. It is difficult to explain to others in a way that'll make sense.
Other people may not feel this way; but chucking reasonable balance in favor of something being fun never felt favorable to me. Others might disagree entirely.

There's reasonable balancing and then there's making something un-fun. (I don't like when stuff is tarnished to the point of just being un-fun/a log...)

I'm trying to think of some good examples that won't get me put on a pike in the current forums environment, I'll use drowning. It's very generalized and not exactly correlated to character balancing, but applies a shared mindset.

Being able to lure a boss onto dock to instantly kill them was really fun/funny, but skewed for balancing. 
It could've been kept, have it do some major damage or akin, would've made for a very neat way of using your head to tackle a threat, though as it was out-of-the-box felt really unpolished.
This example doesn't correlate to all the issues presented, though it hopefully gives an example at my current thought process when looking at things.

6 minutes ago, xDpromonick9 said:

I think that you're wrong when you're telling me the new content feels like just holding F and focused on combat and here is why:

None of that was me intending to tell you how the new content actually is, rather what it feels like to some folks.
That wasn't an attempt at saying you cannot enjoy and/or view it in another light, you can, and I love when other folks have different POVs!

Just saying that it's valid for other folks to not quite share that same POV and want something that caters to them and branches off in a different direction. We can have both! <3

[cybers2001]

I feel like Wolfgang’s damage problems was a bit distorted from all the parroting going on here. He still felt strong enough to me, and I’ve killed probably hundreds of brightshades at this point.

[chirsg]

I can't even test what's powerful or not. And I am only testing Woodie for now. I can't speak for the other characters.

I want to test every single wereform perk, but there is such a ridiculous time barrier that we'll only be able to test one at a time.

You'll have to no life it to figure out if what's released is broken or underpowered.

And it's the weekend. I might want to go out, log onto AOL and talk to chicks. That's the only way I can do that.

But the demand for me to play may supersede nurturing my social life.

What do I do?
I just want to figure out this Woodie powercreep.

Speaking of powercreep, my speculation of it is the only thing I can provide because I don't have all insight points unlocked, so take it with a grain of grass tuft. 
Yes. Woodie is very powerful. 

My metric of powercreep of how a character performs in the early game.
Late game, even wes is overpowered. 

I think Woodie with all his insight perks unlocked is pretty ridiculous. Late game, he deserves every single one of his perks... Speculatively speaking. 
I think that each game should start with 0 insight, but have each point be earned with milestones. 

A bit cheap, but there are certain tasks that each form or lucy herself excel at.

I'd say scrap all perks being unlocked at the beginning of each game and have tasks unlock the points for Woodie.

Chop 100 trees, refine 100 boards, collect 10 stonefruit saplings, defeat 50 spider warriors, mine thulecite, ETC.

I can't speak for wormwood or wolfgang at all, but I REALLY like where weremoose is having unlocked only 3 of his perks and not attaining mastery just yet.

My 2 cents. Have tasks unlock insight.

[Mysterious box]

4 minutes ago, NoodlemanNed said:

I think the game is actually surprisingly similar to how it used to be back when i started in about 2018. When i was new to the game i had a pretty hard time since i had no idea where i could reliably get food, or how to deal with all creatures who acted in seemingly random ways. Enemies like spiders and pigmen function exactly as they always did, common food items still havnt had their stats changed in all these years, the biggest difference for someone picking up the game is the plethora of new perks (although many of them require you to have a basic grasp of the game before they become remotely powerful). Even the toughest threats in the game like seasonal giant and wildfires become trivial not because wx has night vision, or because woodie can walk on water, its because we learned how to deal with those threats.

I believe the real reason the game has become too forgiving is because the "good" challenge that dst offers comes through a lack of experience, and if you play a game for years while keeping up with every new update, youre preventing yourself from ever experiencing that again. In order to actually benefit from all the power creep from updates you still need to learn the game enough to know that youre capable of such power. This is why people even today quit the game out of frustration for it being too hard, the game didnt get significantly easier, you just got significantly better.

I mean the game has largely changed however be it summoning seasonal mobs and bosses on a whim using flares, having actual immortal followers with infinite loyalty timers, being able to change the weather on a whim, creating resource generators, reshaping easy to find resources into rarer ones, content actively avoiding us, and these are just some random examples but the game simultaneously directly got easier while our characters became extremely powerful. It's not even fair to say players just got better our characters are just actively more threatening and mystical than most things the constant can throw at us.

[Swiyss]

5 minutes ago, -Variant said:

None of that was me intending to tell you how the new content actually is, rather what it feels like to some folks.
That wasn't an attempt at saying you cannot enjoy and/or view it in another light, you can, and I love when other folks have different POVs!

Just saying that it's valid for other folks to not quite share that same POV and want something that caters to them and branches off in a different direction. We can have both! <3

I understand that completely, don't need to mention it. However maybe the game IS a hold-f and kill type of kiting.

If it is, then what's the problem with that? they can't make some mmorpg insane complex high level clickable object experience anyway since the game lags a bit on different regions, it IS meant to be like that I guess. 

I don't think they could've done it better than adding those skill trees. A noob is gonna come to the game and say "what is this? Inspiration? Might check that, didn't even knew existed" and old folks will say "with all my knowledge in the game, being almost a walk-around wikipedia in my head, how can I use my creativity to make the game feel fresh again by using this perk instead of this one". It is NOT a commom thing to have a skill tree on a survival game, and that is why is so amazing. It's the same concept of putting RNG on world creationg, it will ALWAYS be a different world no matter what. And people got used to that, so the tree perks for old players are a PERFECT match IMO. They just need to be a bit more refined until it really starts to get good;

like adding more variety on it would be a nice step into the right direction by the devs.

12 minutes ago, -Variant said:

Just saying that it's valid for other folks to not quite share that same POV and want something that caters to them and branches off in a different direction. We can have both! <3

That's kinda egoistic and not fine IN MY OPINION. The devs should do what they feel like and maybe get influenced a bit here and there, but if they start to listen TOO MUCH it will turn into a disaster, since the leader can see things us disciples can't.

[Arcwell]

4 minutes ago, chirsg said:

I can't even test what's powerful or not. And I am only testing Woodie for now. I can't speak for the other characters.

I want to test every single wereform perk, but there is such a ridiculous time barrier that we'll only be able to test one at a time.

You'll have to no life it to figure out if what's released is broken or underpowered.

And it's the weekend. I might want to go out, log onto AOL and talk to chicks. That's the only way I can do that.

But the demand for me to play may supersede nurturing my social life.

What do I do?
I just want to figure out this Woodie powercreep.

1. Create a world
2. Select Woodie
3. Open console
4. Type c_skip(150)
5. You now have 15 insight points

[Swiyss]

18 minutes ago, -Variant said:

...something that caters to them and branches off in a different direction.

That part

[Mike23Ua]

1 hour ago, goblinball said:

I will never understand ppl like you who prioritize statistical balance over fun

yeah the new skill trees make the characters alot more powerful but who cares, they’re fun

as long as you aren’t killing bosses in literal seconds and there is still some semblance of challenge then it’s fine. “Balance” doesn’t matter as much as you ppl say it does, especially when making things balanced can often make things less fun

fun value is ultimately the most important thing imo and as long as the skill tree perks are fun then they’re a good addition there’s not much more to it

i know a lot of ppl enjoy dst because of its “uncompromising” challenge but these new skill tree perks (or at least, the super powerful ones ppl actually care about) are pretty late game when enemies get stronger to balance it out so like this is just basic progression lol it doesn’t mean all challenge is gone forever 

 

For some people (like myself..) our idea of “Fun” was to have unique perks, to have some fun upsides with some manageable downsides.

Not everyone enjoys downsides.. but downsides can play just as much of a time in making a character “fun” as their upsides can.

For example I originally bought and enjoyed Wormwood for his inability to heal from food items.. however with the addition of being able to heal by simply smearing rot on himself the heal challenge was significantly lessened.

Same thing happened with Wurt, she originally had to horde foods before winter started, but now thanks to RWYS gardens, Wurts downside isn’t as noticeable.

Maybe Klei’s intention is to make the characters appeal to everyone by not having such strong downsides, I don’t really know..

I just know that speaking strictly as someone who came from Solo DS before moving over to DST-

I played Solo DS FOR The Challenge.. for those Downsides, for the Rogue-Lite game Mode where dying in world 5 means restarting in world 1.

And DST is a vast departure from that.. I wish Klei would Re-instate some of the original challenges, fun downsides & things I loved about Dont Starve into DST, but it appears their wanting to move the franchise out of its survival rogue-lite roots, and into being more accessible to a broader audience of gamers.

I can’t say that I blame them.. they are a company and their goal is to make money after all.. but strictly from the mindset of someone who loved DS for what it WAS, I’m not too big of a fan on what it’s becoming.

But I’m just one guy, and my opinion doesn’t really matter 

[chirsg]

11 minutes ago, Arcwell said:

1. Create a world
2. Select Woodie
3. Open console
4. Type c_skip(150)
5. You now have 15 insight points

That's cheatin.

In relation to that, it skews opinion in a way. 

I don't think time based insight accumulation is the way to go and this is a contributor. It's easy for us to say "New characters are broken now" because they weren't earned. 

I still believe tasks should dictate insight points being unlocked.

What better time than a beta to test this thought experiment? 

[Primalflower]

32 minutes ago, -Variant said:

This is in-built mentality for me. Non competitive balancing is something I still cling to, even if not applicable in every scenario.
It's awkward to talk about in detail since a good majority of the ways to word it just ends up with folks thinking you don't care for things being fun for the sake of being fun. It is difficult to explain to others in a way that'll make sense.
Other people may not feel this way; but chucking reasonable balance in favor of something being fun never felt favorable to me. Others might disagree entirely.

There's reasonable balancing and then there's making something un-fun. (I don't like when stuff is tarnished to the point of just being un-fun/a log...)

I'm trying to think of some good examples that won't get me put on a pike in the current forums environment, I'll use drowning. It's very generalized and not exactly correlated to character balancing, but applies a shared mindset.

Being able to lure a boss onto dock to instantly kill them was really fun/funny, but skewed for balancing. 
It could've been kept, have it do some major damage or akin, would've made for a very neat way of using your head to tackle a threat, though as it was out-of-the-box felt really unpolished.
This example doesn't correlate to all the issues presented, though it hopefully gives an example at my current thought process when looking at things.

do you think that what you're really saying is that you just don't like it when you feel like a character is a complete power trip? I say this from a genuine place, I'm not trying to like, belittle you or anything.         

because from my perspective, what immediately comes to mind is that when I'm looking for a character to play, what I'm looking for is an enjoyable, and quite possibly unique experience to others, and both 'harder' and 'easier' starts in this sense absolutely have places in that! When I'm playing oxygen not included, there are times when I am going to want to start a colony on an asteroid that doesn't give me much trouble as i play through the game, and there are times when I want the pain handed to me! thats why I come to the hypothesis that you might just not like the thought of a character that gives you absolutely no trouble, because of course thats going to be boring.

but then, to that, I postulate that, is any character really at that point? The only one I would end up really agreeing with you with is Wendy, in that abigail pretty much completely trivializes a lot of threats and I find her gameplay to be pretty boring as a result. Other than that, I don't really feel like any character has completely trivialized the game, every single one absolutely has strengths and tasks they excel at, but I don't think theres any point in which some aspect of survival has been uniquely conquerable by one handful of characters that hasn't been immediately shot down in a few-days-later-patch or otherwise made attainable in some way by other characters. and based on what we've seen of the skill trees so far, I don't really think thats going to change.

[Masked Koopa]

I should point out that the perks available on the skill tree are in large part just addendums to already mediocre mechanics such as the wereforms, or crafts with their own set of stipulations and limitations. If Klei added a bevvy of new items, every character would have more options available to them, but that wouldn't nessecarily mean power creep happened. Wolfgang is able to deal his normal x2 damage with the new planar weapons. Woodie gains downgrades to the football helmet and walking cane with higher accessibility. Wormwood gains followers that are beefier, but cost his own HP, require a rare crop, and have a limited number. For a large majority of the perks added on the skill tree, they are just additional options that happen to be character-specific, rather than being large improvements to the character's base kit.

I think it would be far more constructive to critique the implementation of these new perks, rather than them existing, because the reality is that there's just not enough people who dislike this change when compared to those who are excited to see what the future holds. I think a character being too complex would be a greater concern than too powerful with the tier most of these perks are in the first place. You could definitely argue that Woodie's downsides being removed was perhaps too much, but Wormwood's downside is entirely intact, while Wolfgang remains the most simple of the cast in terms of perks. Hell, a lot of Wormwood's new perks specifically use his inability to heal from most sources as a cost.

[xhyom]

4 minutes ago, Mike23Ua said:

Not everyone enjoys downsides.. but downsides can play just as much of a time in making a character “fun” as their upsides can.

I'm kinda scared on that topic, I play as Wurt mostly and her downsides are basically what defines her as a character, having a different diet and not interacting with pigs was enough to change my whole gameplay cycle, I started fishing for gold, to sail for food, pay some visits to moon island and the monkey's island for their sources of food, things which I neglected ever since they've released, just because my downside made me take alternatives to overcome them. As for Woodie and Wormwood, well, they had pretty bad perks actually so having some treats is nice and they aren't game breaking in any way, but what will happen when it comes to ones like Wickerbottom which has no downside at all? Will she be able to sleep with a bonus stats gain? Will Wortox not be considered a monster? Wolfgang is a precedent, a strong character just getting more strong at no cost.