Skill Trees Are The Wrong Way To Go, I Think.

[Cheggf]

14 minutes ago, sylvia wander o said:

I'm trying my very best to find a way to say this that doesn't come across rude... Just, I want to make it as clear as possible that this isn't a type of person who exists. This isn't an attitude that anyone has.

[ImDaMisterL]

Hey everyone, remember to keep posts polite, constructive and on-topic. Do not target other users in your post and don't make it personal.

Thank you for understanding, have a great weekend

[Dragonboooorn]

1 hour ago, Cheggf said:

Everyone smart enough to see why the skill trees are bad are smart enough to know that discussing it on the forums won't achieve anything except getting reaction farming sycophants to say that the game is evolving and you need to keep up with the times, old man.

stop de bunkin my strats for farming emote reputation!!!

[chincer]

Personally I like the skill trees, I think the issue isn't the skills given but that the unlock method means nothing.

 

It should not carry over between worlds, and it should not take days to unlock each insight.

 

Instead performing certain actions will unlock points and the corresponding skills.

For example killing a tree guard as woodie for the first time in the world giving you the tree guard feller skills, and one point to spend.transforming into each of the forms for a point and the skill areas unlock, crafting board for the board crafts and such, things that will happen in each world but won't happen on day one, but also won't take a year in game to unlock all

[HowlVoid]

Nothing that is to one day become a permanent addition to a character should take that long.

I agree with at least everyone saying this. I think most of the community agrees on this.

I think rather than an objective providing a specific skill it should provide a general skill point. I don't think everyone will always want to max out on skill point allowance for every character (like how I care mostly for wormwood battle abilities). 

So I think objectives should give a +1 skill point you can spend as you wish. That way you can do the objectives only you care about for the minimum skill points you care about. 

[Ketrai]

Honestly, whilst I'm not a huge fan of the powercreep either, I can absolutely see where Klei is coming from.

- This game STILL has a devastating learning curve. I assume most people here are quite well versed in the game like me, and don't have any trouble surviving and progressing. But whenever I see new players, streamers, etc play. They struggle, massively. DST has a massive problem retaining new players and appealing to them. A skill tree would offer tangible progress that isn't lost when players mess up and die. They're making some kind of progress, and might not get frustrated as easily. Whilst I love the game, I wouldn't mind it getting more accessible.

- Skill trees are a good way to encourage different playstyles amongst people who enjoy the same character. Often servers have multiple wendies or whatever, now they'll likely spec into different skills, offering unique value despite being the same character twice.

That being said I hope you can disable skill trees in the server settings for people who want to experience the raw characters again, or simply enjoy the added challenge. 

[lowercase skye]

1 hour ago, Cheggf said:

Oh, no I totally agree that people exist on some parts of the internet who do this, but the thing about Reddit is that (as I've learned from my sad many years on there in the past) it's a heavily ingrained part of that site's culture to be like this, there's even a monetary incentive for it (as you'll see by many accounts with high karma getting bought by advertisers and immediately proceeding to post ads everywhere). The same sort of thing doesn't apply here though, there's no one here trying to farm some kind of Klei Forums karma or anything, heck we even had the concept of a "downvote" removed on two separate occasions.

[BezKa]

5 minutes ago, Ketrai said:

This game STILL has a devastating learning curve.

I'm sorry this is drifting off topic, but I just wanted to quickly express myself on how I feel on this topic. Sorry I'm using your quote to do this.

The devastating learning curve IS THE FUN OF DON'T STARVE. It IS the game. The fact it's difficult to learn, that you're blind most of the time, that you will fail 99% of the time, that millions of dead Wilsons is a thing to celebrate.  It is the main appeal of the game. It's what makes it what it is.

Or at least it used to. Klei has abandoned this approach with the addition of the scrapbook. And it makes me immensely sad.

If you see a new player, tell them to play Don't Starve first, and to avoid tutorials or wiki if they can. Because that is the intended experience. Go blind, stumble, fall, die. Over and over. Until you learn enough to prevent it.

Some people don't like this experience. I think it's wrong to try changing the game for them. But money is money.

Rant over

[Ketrai]

11 minutes ago, BezKa said:

The devastating learning curve IS THE FUN OF DON'T STARVE. It IS the game. The fact it's difficult to learn, that you're blind most of the time, that you will fail 99% of the time, that millions of dead Wilsons is a thing to celebrate.  It is the main appeal of the game. It's what makes it what it is.

If you see a new player, tell them to play Don't Starve first, and to avoid tutorials or wiki if they can. Because that is the intended experience. Go blind, stumble, fall, die. Over and over. Until you learn enough to prevent it.

This is especially what the original don't starve is still like. But what I'm trying to say is that Klei can make a game that both the hardcore fans and the less hardcore players/newbies can enjoy, when the game has been getting easier for years now, yet the playerbase keeps steadily growing. You can tailor your experience. There's even mods out there like uncompromising mode to keep veterans on their toes. Additionally, you can pick between multiple modes, which appeal to different kinds of people. If anything I can see the struggle between Klei trying to make the game less enjoyment-draining for new people, without completely taking away the harsh nature of Don't Starve.

People need to learn to accept that what's fun to one person, can be absolutely soul crushing to others. I've tried to drag many friends into DST. Friends who love all kinds of survival games. But DST's odd style, demanding players to be constantly outpacing their death? It's too much for most of them. For the few that are masochistic enough, or love to nerd out about game mechanics. Hell yeah, give them the full 0 tutorial treatment. I'm just not going to try and tell them how to have fun in this game, if it's not their jam.

In the end I'm happy to compromise some of my own fun (aka the game getting easier) so I can play and enjoy this game with more people again. This is Don't Starve Together after all.

[BezKa]

3 minutes ago, Ketrai said:

Snip

I don't want to have a discussion on this particular topic. It was a rant. But your explanation just shows me most people on this forum are somehow so invested in Klei's monetary gain they're willing to let their game rot.

If people can't accept the game for what it is, they shouldn't play. There's so many games. Why destroy something that works well for certain group just so another group can enjoy it, when they have their own thing somewhere else.

Money. Heh. Funny how it always comes to this.

[Dextops]

1 hour ago, BezKa said:

Or at least it used to. Klei has abandoned this approach with the addition of the scrapbook. And it makes me immensely sad.

This is a weird sentiment. The scrapbook didn’t remove the learning curve. Imo it made it better because now people aren’t just searching up the wiki (which is what most people decide to do) but now they’re able to get that information in game. Just makes it so the game is less reliant on guides and a wiki 

[Dragonboooorn]

6 minutes ago, Dextops said:

This is a weird sentiment. The scrapbook didn’t remove the learning curve. Imo it made it better because now people aren’t just searching up the wiki (which is what most people decide to do) but now they’re able to get that information in game. Just makes it so the game is less reliant on guides and a wiki 

New players still wont find out about fuelweaver and celestial champion arcs all by themself.

[Dextops]

1 minute ago, Dragonboooorn said:

New players still wont find out about fuelweaver and celestial champion arcs all by themself.

Yeah, that’s kind of a mess up on kleis part. More hints definitely need to be added 

[GolographGUSlo]

My main concern about skill tree is gaining insight points. It has potential but what we have is just a ”survive x days”. Why not give insight points for actively playing the game? It's not solving ”the problem” of new players not knowing what to do. This system is not encouraging exploring world or overcoming its difficulties but rather encouraging them(new players) to stay on the base where they safe. And it's not teaching players how to play on character you picked since you gain points for just surviving long enough.

I think the system itself could use some polishing and rethinking.