Do you like or dislike this beta and what it suggests: a forum survey

[hhh2]

Wow, this is a pretty divisive time again in the community. Seems like this is happening more regularly. Anyway, with all the opinions flying around, I'd like to try reach a consensus on this update and the notion that all characters will eventually have their very own skill tree.

Write and vote honestly and keep the following discussion orderly and tame; there is another living breathing person at the ends of every post.

[Dextops]

I absolutely love this update. Favorite update since waterlogged and it’s made me interested in playing characters I never would’ve even thought as a option before.

[Ohan]

What i dislike the most is the “uneven-handedness” once again. Some survivors get more attention and a more refined result than others. 

Woodie’s skill tree is literal perfection whereas 50% of wormwood’s skills are straight up jokes for poops and giggles, 40% is lacklustre fluff and only 10% is actually meaningful, interesting and fun. That being Moon Shroom Clouds and Lunar Guardian 1&2. 

Its understandable that some survivors may inspire the devs more or whatever but it just sucks when others draw the short end of that stick and are left with underwhelming stuff and unrealized potential.

Especially when it comes to Wormwood who was in a similar halfbaked state as Woodie before this beta. Like.. not a single skill dedicated to his bramble crafts..?

[Copyafriend]

7 minutes ago, Ohan said:

Especially when it comes to Wormwood who was in a similar halfbaked state as Woodie before this beta. 

I fully disagree with this statement. Wormwood may not be as strong as the other characters, but mechanics wise he is fairly fleshed out.

my only complaint is post CC for the transmuting things into allied creatures.

like are we sure we need that for the barely useful minions we can make? (Or do i only need to kill cc once?)

[GenomeSquirrel]

I like the skills overall, not a fan of them being in skill tree form instead of innate, but there are some skills that are better on a tree.

I hate the grind, it’s nice we can cheat it easily, but I still hate that it exists.

[Habakkuk]

I love most of the new skills, but i don't like the idea of a skill tree.  
Other stuff i like, the umbrella as it is now is very similar to a suggestion I did some weeks ago and I love it.
Wolfgang leg day could have 3 fases and the last one could give him 25% speed boost. And i don't like the new Dumbbells.
I love the bush crafting skill and the petal production skill from wornwood.

[CameoAppearance]

I feel a mixture of things! I mostly like the new skill trees themselves, but I don't like how lackluster it makes the Wilson update look by comparison, both as in 'most of his character update turned out to be stuff that everyone was going to get later on but it was presented as a rework for him at the time' and as in 'the new skill trees benefit from being developed later and are both more useful and more consistently true to the character they're attached to than Wilson's'.

[ALCRD]

Mixed feelings but i like some of the skills they added.

I also am excited to see what Walter , Winona and Willow will get.

[gamehun20]

36 minutes ago, Copyafriend said:

Or do i only need to kill cc once?

Yeah atleast for now

[Milordo]

Nothing to say that I didn't on my post or others did on theirs. 

Heavily dislike the update and what it is coming to dst

[HowlVoid]

Loved this update and am excited to see more. Hate to see how much fluff is in wormwood's skill tree but I'm very content with the battle skills he got. 

I hope the devs are willing to look over it again. No skills connected to his crafts is somewhat concerning, is that not a core of his kit?

[Szczuku]

Some perks that characters get are... fine, I guess.

But I hate that they are in the form of a skill tree 'locked' behind surviving 150 days once and then they are available forever

[Theukon-dos]

I've said my own dues on the matter. But as a TL;DR I don't like having skill trees as a concept and definitely think it's a "rich get richer" scenario. But I do think it's overall a net positive if it means that Klei finally gives characters like Woodie the buffs that they've needed sense their refreshes. 

[BB Marioni]

I feel like the devs should make polls about their ideas to see what players would think before deciding to implement them. For example for the skill trees, they couldve made a poll/ survey saying like "would you like to see skill trees for the rest of the character? yes/no"

Unlike the current method of "hey, i got a great idea, lets give everyone (insert update)" *inserts it in beta, *players don't like the entire idea
devs: "well, we already implemented the idea, even though this is just beta, we cant scrap everything, best we can do is tweak it"

[Copyafriend]

13 minutes ago, BB Marioni said:

 

I feel like the devs should make polls about their ideas to see what players would think before deciding to implement them. For example for the skill trees, they couldve made a poll/ survey saying like "would you like to see skill trees for the rest of the character? yes/no"

Unlike the current method of "hey, i got a great idea, lets give everyone (insert update)" *inserts it in beta, *players don't like the entire idea
devs: "well, we already implemented the idea, even though this is just beta, we cant scrap everything, best we can do is tweak it"

 

Except for the small problem of developer freedom.

we dont have to like the update. Hell if and when i make a game general consensus can suck a compost wrap. Its my game.

But also a lot of people like it, on the poll i saw 70% liked it. Thats not great numbers, but its not terrible either.

[Dextops]

16 minutes ago, BB Marioni said:

I feel like the devs should make polls about their ideas to see what players would think before deciding to implement them. For example for the skill trees, they couldve made a poll/ survey saying like "would you like to see skill trees for the rest of the character? yes/no"

Unlike the current method of "hey, i got a great idea, lets give everyone (insert update)" *inserts it in beta, *players don't like the entire idea
devs: "well, we already implemented the idea, even though this is just beta, we cant scrap everything, best we can do is tweak it"

God please no, I don’t trust the community much less the forums to be able to have the entire say with these kinds of things. Tell us beforehand like in Wilson’s rework? Sure. Leave it for the forums to decide? Heavens no 

[Catteflyterpill]

17 minutes ago, BB Marioni said:

I feel like the devs should make polls about their ideas to see what players would think before deciding to implement them. For example for the skill trees, they couldve made a poll/ survey saying like "would you like to see skill trees for the rest of the character? yes/no"

Unlike the current method of "hey, i got a great idea, lets give everyone (insert update)" *inserts it in beta, *players don't like the entire idea
devs: "well, we already implemented the idea, even though this is just beta, we cant scrap everything, best we can do is tweak it"

There's a lot of problems with that. It would really slow things down for them to have to wait for the community greenlight everytime we want something. There's a lot more of a community outside of what you see on the forums or other social media sites. And players don't always know best, sometimes devs have to keep things under wraps and not give out the big picture. While we have the perspective and experience as the community who plays the game we still lack the perspective of everything going on behind the scenes. 

[Shosuko]

Disappointed that they use planar system to nerf characters only to sell them back their power.  I wonder if Wicker will have some book restrictions based on her choices nerfing her?  Or if Maxwell might have to make a choice between better shadow magic OR stealing her textbooks?

[Mysterious box]

Should have a mixed option as I feel like I'm somewhere in the middle.

I will say the more time I have to digest it Wormwood's skill tree is the one I feel is bad character wise most of his skills are straight up bad either by design or principle.

Him being able to craft resource producers like bushes is bad in two ways it undermines exploration and resource management for one. Then for two it wastes what should be something that would enchance his gameplay unless your decorating there's no reason for this to be a ability you would use besides your forced to for a path. Does it improve his gameplay loop no. Does it fill some niche he lacks no. And before someone jumps down my throat if you want to craft resource producing plants fine then separate it from Wormwood and give him something worthwhile in its place like let him grow moon shrooms or something.

Then there's his other skills I like the more creative ones like sleep spores, and flower petal production for example but then there's absolutely worthless ones even in terms of quality of life like the fruit fly path and the increased tending range that make me think originally his post celestial champion skills on the left side were meant to be pre celestial champion but were put there to make up for the fact he wouldn't have a shadow path for lore reasons.

Personally I'd remove fruit fly tree, tending tree, butterfly, as well as the production plants except lure plant. Then split his skills between two paths.

Mutation where his skills are based around directly changing himself where his abilities like spores, petals, bloom, and more new ones.

Live giver where his skills are more based around growing plants faster, and bringing plants to life while giving new interactions with the rest of the plant mobs of the constant like post cc left side lure plant included.

12 minutes ago, Shosuko said:

Disappointed that they use planar system to nerf characters only to sell them back their power.  I wonder if Wicker will have some book restrictions based on her choices nerfing her?  Or if Maxwell might have to make a choice between better shadow magic OR stealing her textbooks?

If wormwood is any indicator I doubt maxwell is going to have a lunar tree.

[Jakepeng99]

There is no neutral option, which is how i feel.

I like the current skill trees, but main concern with skill trees as a concept is it forces alot of additions on fleshed out characters like Wickerbottom, Wanda, and few others on a smaller scale which might make them feel flooded.

[Ivankapoloq]

I like the skill trees, it fits the idea that survivors are learning and adapting to The Constant and will use every resource available in order to survive and escape, even if that means joining the enemy. While some perks seem like too much of a buff im pretty sure that there will be some sort of Terraria "hardmode" later on that will justify their existence. 

[Pumking7]

I agree with Jakepeng99, for I feel as if this update has brought some things I appreciate, whereas there are some choices made that I don't understand, leaving me quite neutral.

All of Woodie's powers are pretty solid, except for the goose which continues to be the worst were-form. I think if they made it so the goose's flying power consumed less were-meter or you could somewhat aim in the direction you would want it to fly to would make me consider using it post-very early game.

As others have mentioned Wormwood has skills that don't really add anything significant to the character and improve perks of his that are already fine. The mushrooms and summoning plant friends are very cute and neat though.

Wolfgang's skill tree is probably the worst with the skills to extend past his normal mightiness cap and the "might" skill tree being the least impressive. Extending past normal mightiness isn't that helpful since mightiness is easy to gain and this skill doesn't affect how fast it drains, although I am glad it makes the gym somewhat unique compared to dumbells. The "might" skill path feels like bait for player unaware of planar damage, as they would think "planar" weapons might be normal weapons and not content that takes forever to engage with. It feels as though wormwood and woodie got new lines of synergy with their skills whereas Wolfgang just remains just as a 2x damage character is a bit boring.

The new repair kits are really nice and helps with removing the tedious farming of pure brilliance to even use this gear. I also do appreciate the changes made to the umbralla, void cowl and brightshade helm for they feel more useful in general due to it. The void armor and brightshade armor don't really feel the same with them having weaker abilities than the helms but also cost the body slot makes it feel off. The void armors perk of negating all sanity drains is kinda of cool if albeit a worse form of the beequeen crown, however the brightshade armor only dealing 10/20 in retaliation to normal/shadow enemies feels really poor.

The biggest issue I have about these skill trees and rift content too is that although there is a larger emphasis on killing FW and CC for skill tree upgrades and harder gameplay, their questlines are still very tedious, confusing and unrewarding on the whole. I feel like before From Beyond and skill trees, CC and FW questlines were not worth talking about due to them just appearing like extra content for DST so people could find online what they could do in DST after the first year without being bored. However now that they have purpose in the context of characters and the game I feel like they should be improved a bit more to be more fun for the player to complete instead of being a chore

[abrocator]

I am happy with the beta and unhappy about the current direction:

• The new skill trees are cool
• Skill trees in themselves are a bad idea for DST
• Planar damage is a bad idea
• The changes to the items like the brightshade stuff in this Beta are good
• Still unsure if the post-CC or post-FW will be any good. So far it doesn’t look like it.

[Dragonboooorn]

Im satisfied with Wolfgang and Woodie skill trees. I love them, in fact. 

Wolfgang finally become best fighter again, and his speed are back in a way. Tho I wish Klei would just let Wolfgang wear marble suit and piggyback without penalty in normal form too, hes a heavy lifter all, no? Carrying heavy objects is his thing.

As for Woodie － Hes a seasoned hermit lumberjack, surviving in the wildreness is his thing! Faster gathering rate and new carving wood items fits him fine too. Were forms are fairly buffed, weremoose is OP fr now! Using it with new skills is pure delight!

Wormwood new skills opinion? I dont play him and dont care lol

[Mike23Ua]

I can’t play in betas but I can gather enough information on them to make an informed opinion on them.

For starters: I dislike that they changed the Helmet & Armor Buff to now only needing the Helmet to get the buff, I was having fun needing to ditch my back pack and put on full suits of Brightshade gear to fight Brightshades, but I can understand that this change was made because dropping your loot stash anytime you need to fight a BrightShade may be problematic in a Multiplayer game. 

I also don’t understand the point behind the Cave Quakes Pillar Structure: Klei designed these boulders to be polite enough NOT to fall on your base so unless they revert this change.. these structures only support non-base areas.. and even then.. what’s the Risk Vs Reward behind them??

Like I mean if I let cave quakes happen in an area will gems fall from the skies more periodically? Will it anger and attract depth worms or bats? Do they simply release a new world threat that provides nothing new in terms of resources and gameplay.. and then immediately give us a structure to prevent that threat?

In contrast- As destructive as Wildfires may be.. they require a structure that requires upkeep to keep your base safe, but this “structure” isn’t completely useless  it can freeze birds that land nearby, it can prevent wildfires, when you let the wildfires happen in a controlled area it burns away spider infestations, and provides the player with Charcoal and pinecones to clear out and replant the area..

Boulder Quakes do none of this.. they literally just seem to be an added annoyance with no sort of rewards from dealing with them, their only purpose: To force building Support Pillars.

Next on my list of complaints are the “skill trees” ugh… why just… Why?

Let’s use Wickerbottom as an example, chick has a literal library of useful “Skill books” but she has to go out and gather resources from all over the constant to craft those books..

When someone can tell me what the difference between wormwood summoning 3 Saladmanders to his aid & Wickers Grumble Bee book- only THEN will I understand why the game needed skill trees..

It also feels unfair to Wickerbottom because in every world she joins she has to bust her ass to build her library collection, Meanwhile… Skill Trees are a one time investment persisting across every game world.

Its so very UN-DON’T STARVE and I don’t like it…

It makes me question what Wickers “skill tree” will be like- will they increase the amount of grumbles she can summon? Allow her to completely ignore her can’t sleep downside? 

In a game that was all about making your character more powerful through exploring and interacting with the world in each play session you played in, Skill Trees  that are a One & then done affair just feel… out of place.